32 Pickup
by Gunpowder Gelatine
Summary: "Sometimes the only way to win is to flip over the board." "Lelouch, chess does not work that way." "It does the way I play it."
1. 32 Pickup

"Check."

Lelouch grimaced, and glanced back up at his sister. Cornelia was always the quickest to put him in check, and it aggravated him to no end. He'd never beaten Schneizel, true, and his record was about fifty-fifty with Cornelia, but the strategies of his two elder siblings could not be more different, nor could their victories. Battles between him and Schneizel were gentlemen's duels, calm, leisurely, the two spending several minutes between moves thinking about every possible result to each move they might make, and what the other might be planning. When Schneizel picked up a piece, he would often let it hover over a square for several tantalizing moments, or even put it down, keeping his fingers- even just his index- planted on that piece. He'd watch Lelouch's reaction as he held onto that piece, seeing if the young boy would give any of his 'tells' away- a stare becoming a smirk, left eye twitching, a sudden gulp- that Schneizel was doing exactly as he'd planned, and moving it back to where it had come from if he reconsidered, which, most of the time, he did.

Lelouch hated it. It was cheating, is what it was. But somehow, constantly losing to Schneizel never felt nearly as aggravating as playing with Cornelia, whether he won or lost. They weren't playing speed chess- they didn't even _have_ timers- but Cornelia never took longer than fifteen seconds to make her move, and usually made it within five. When she picked up a piece, she knew exactly where it was going and set it down immediately. And although this was usually Lelouch's favorite type of opponent to face, the easiest to lead into a trap, whenever Lelouch let his guard down and thought for a moment that Cornelia was doing exactly as he'd predicted, he'd move to spring his trap only to find that he'd made a fatal mistake and Cornelia made a move he never saw coming, one that he was convinced, in his heart of hearts, that she had never seen coming either. That she'd just made up on the spot.

Cornelia was cheating, too. It wasn't fair that she should make moves nearly as brilliant as his that she didn't even put any thought into. She wasn't skillful, she was _lucky_. It had to be luck. How could it be anything else? How could she do something so stupid as to attack his bishop with her _king_ when he'd been carefully setting up a three-pronged checkmate- only to make him suddenly realize that he had gotten his plan out of order, that he'd moved the bishop before moving the knight in to cover that spot, that her king had indeed taken his bishop while it was unprotected.

And what was the worst was that she didn't even look frightened. The greatest satisfaction Lelouch had ever gleaned from a chess match was not from any victory. Instead, it was when he got Schneizel to gasp and widen his eyes upon the realization that Lelouch had two pawns threatening both his knights- a fork, the classical term for it was- and that to save one he had to sacrifice the other. Schneizel had wiggled his way out of that one, too- moving his knight, instead, to check Lelouch's king. Forcing his hand. But Lelouch savored that moment even still, because for a moment there, he'd made Schneizel desperate. Nervous. Panicked.

Cornelia, on the other hand, would never, ever give him that satisfaction. No matter how desperate the situation, no matter how few pieces she had left, no matter how brilliant his trap was, she had the same expression on her face when she moved her first piece as when she moved her last. Even the same expression on her face now, as she told him that he was in check. Even the same expression whenever she would tell him that he was in checkmate. Cool. Calm. Confident. Lelouch would often wonder whether it was something she'd been born with or whether it was something she'd learned in the military. He couldn't remember a time when Cornelia had been any other way- she'd left for the military academy when she'd been fourteen, and he barely five.

He remembered very little before those years- a teary goodbye between her and Euphie, a package sent occasionally, holidays at home, and their first chess match that he'd challenged her to, the Christmas when she was sixteen and he seven, he remembered going exactly the same way as every other match they'd had since. He remembered that look on her face, the look he hated, the look that made his guts boil, the look that was so offensive and wrong and disturbing to him because it was no look at all, it was just Cornelia staring at him, waiting for him to move, with perhaps a mild sort of amusement on her face.

That was what he hated most. To him, chess was a passion. A study. A way of life. Schneizel understood it too. Chess was a metaphor for the highest levels of intellect the human mind could reach, a true test of wit against wit on an equal battlefield, with a million possibilities and strategies and challenges laid out before you, a story waiting to unfold, an epic battle waiting to be fought, a triumph waiting to be seized, a defeat waiting to crush you.

To Cornelia, chess was just a game.

"It's nothing like real warfare, Lelouch. Real battles are always asymmetrical, and timing and terrain, which don't exist in chess, are the most crucial components of battle in real life. Whole wars have been decided on where a river was located, or what time of day the attack took place, or whether the ground was muddy. Forcing your enemy to fight at a time and place that are good for you and not for him is what strategic warfare is all about. Chess isn't strategy, Lelouch, it's just moving pieces around on a board. You're good at this, but you'd never last a day as a general."

Cornelia's words burned in his head, the heat rising behind his cheeks as he recalled the lecture she'd given him when he made fun of her for having lost and suggested that perhaps he should be the one in line to one day be the commander of the Emperor's armies instead.

Her basic strategy was so predictable. Cornelia _always_ started by moving her pawns out into a grid of mutual diagonal defense, and _always _then moved her rook up next, to guard that open row. Then she _always_ began to move out her bishops, knights, and queen, but that was when everything quite literally went to pieces, either for her or for Lelouch. Her defense grid had its weakspots, sure, but those same weakspots could become its strongest points with one or two of his sister's moves. But when she moved her pieces to defend, it was always a good sign for him, a sign that she did not think the game would be ending soon.

It was when she ignored his attacks into her territory that he knew for certain he was in deep trouble, because that meant she only had one or two moves left to make before he was in checkmate. Cornelia may have thought it was only a game, but when she played, she played to win. She did not fool around, and she did not deliberately let him win, ever. That was the one thing she and Schneizel had in common with this game, and it was the one reason, Lelouch told himself, that he even still played with her. His mother had let him win once, at age six, and that had been the last game he'd ever allowed her to play with him.

Cornelia went straight for his king in the most direct route possible, and always attempted to check him with her queen. That queen was her favorite piece, for sure, and she was never frightened of putting the queen deep into enemy territory where all he had to do was move a few pieces to trap her. Her queen seemed to find her way out of even the most carefully-laid traps, and always managed to kill several of his most valuable pieces in the process. The most powerful piece in Cornelia's arsenal, Cornelia never played a single game without letting her queen's presence be known, that queen burning and slashing a bloody path of conquest all across Lelouch's side of the board and moving to put him in check from a distance wherever possible.

But strangely, the only games Lelouch had ever won against her were the games where he had left Cornelia's queen on the board. It seemed that, for all the damage she did, Cornelia's most effective use of that most powerful piece was as a diversion. A distraction. A noisy, frightening belligerent that sent him scrambling to protect himself and destroy it. When he ignored it and focused on Cornelia's support pieces, he quickly realized that it was her bishops or knights that were the ones truly moving to trap his king. Whenever he killed Cornelia's queen, he always found himself forced to use one of his more powerful pieces to do it- and as soon as that piece moved out of hiding, often taken soon afterward by one of her pawns, his king was left open, and trapped in a checkmate within a few moves.

It was maddening. It was infuriating. It was _UNFAIR! _Killing your opponent's queen was supposed to cripple their ability to checkmate you, not boost it! All the books he'd read on chess, all of Schneizel's advice, all of the grandmasters in the Empire he'd played against, had all said that the queen was a piece you were supposed to keep protected and in reserve! That her power was something best used on a wide-open board, in the later part of the game! Cornelia treated her queen no better than a pawn, attacked his most carefully-constructed and densely-packed defensive formations, put her in more danger than any of her other pieces, and always came out on top for it!

Cornelia played chess _wrong_.

So how did she keep on beating him?

Lelouch gritted his teeth, and stared at the board.

Concentrate, Lelouch. There must be a way out of this you aren't seeing. She's twice your age- exactly twice his age, he mused, realizing that she'd turned twenty last week and he was still ten- but you already _know_ you're far smarter than she'll ever be. Than any of them will ever know. Mother said so, and Father... well, he'll find out someday.

Lelouch grinned in satisfaction at that thought, moving his bishop to shield his king from the threat of that attack.

His fingers had barely left the bishop when Cornelia's reached in to take hold of her rook, a piece she hadn't touched for twelve moves, still sitting next to her king all the way across the board, and Lelouch's heart plummeted into his stomach as he realized that there were six empty vertical squares between it and his bishop.

"Checkmate."

...

Later that night, after his mother had twisted his ear and forced him to pick up all thirty-two pieces from all over the living room and apologize to both Cornelia and Nunnally, who had begun wailing and sobbing, both from being hit by a pair of flying pawns and at the sight of her brother throwing a toddler's fit, the thought finally occurred to Lelouch that the real reason he continued to play against Cornelia and the reason she continued to play against him, even when a good third of his losses ended in him behaving in a most abominable manner for the rest of the night, were one and the same.

Games between him and Cornelia were always aggravating, frustrating, and infuriating, but they were also always exciting.

Could it be that the reason Cornelia's expression never changed, win or lose, was that she was enjoying the game either way?

Perhaps there was something to Cornelia's way of looking at chess, too. Perhaps it was all of those things he held dear, _and_ a game. Perhaps entertainment was just as valid a purpose for chess as any other.

Perhaps.

But now he had a new life's goal, and that was to one day make Schneizel flip over the chessboard and throw a fit, too.

Maybe even while Cornelia was watching. _That _thought made a strange feeling well up inside of him, and for a bizarre moment he imagined wrapping an arm around her, with him the black king and her his white queen, while Schneizel, the white king, stamped his foot and shook his fist at him for stealing his bride. A feeling almost more satisfying than winning a chess match. But there was nothing more satisfying than that, was there...?

Ah, well, a boy could dream, couldn't he?


	2. Knight's Tour

"Awww, he's _sooooooo _cuuuuuuuute!"

The amethyst eyes of Euphemia and Nunnally, and the violet ones of the latter's mother, Marianne, would swell open wide as their grins appeared simultaneously in a mixture of pride, delight, and agreement, while Cornelia li Britannia wore a look that could only be described as exhaustion, and Lelouch's face expressed sheer, unrelenting terror.

"Isn't he JUST?" Euphemia squealed, latching onto Lelouch and rubbing her cheek against his.

"FINALLY, someone with some _taste _around here!" Marianne would reach down to plant her fingers into the hair of both her son and his pink-haired hanger-on, wearing a bemused, serene little grin on her face.

Nunnally simply clung possessively to Lelouch's arm opposite Euphie- a position Lelouch had found himself trapped in more and more lately- and, smiling, added, "And he's all mine, too."

Euphemia shot Nunnally a brief, playful raspberry, while Lelouch began to stammer out, "Uh... um... uh... it's... n-n-nice to... meet you, Ms. Enn... Ennea..."

"Oh, please, Lelouch, daaarling, call me Nonette." Nonette, the platinum-blonde knight, and Cornelia's self-proclaimed friend, drawled, as she leaned down to leave a smear of violet lipstick on Lelouch's cheek before slowly slinking back up and coming face-to-face with the one member of the royal family who wasn't gushing about Lelouch's cuteness. Nonette's expression was blank and dull, as if she was expecting something but did not want to be the one to broach the subject.

"Neeellliieeeeee..."

"tol'ya..n'tac'lmethat..." a very low, almost imperceptible murmur exited Cornelia's throat, and was muted when she clamped her jaw shut.

"NEEEEEELLLLIEEEEEEEEEEE...." Nonette persisted, and Euphemia grinned and joined in. "Neeellliieeeeee!"

"Don't you start, too, Euphie! I TOLD you not to call me that, Nonette, why do you keep on... embarrassing... me... in front of..." Cornelia started, her flare of anger being quenched immediately by Nonette's expectant, almost reprimanding stare.

"In front of _who_, Nellie? We're all friends here, aren't we, Mary?" Nonette would grin, before delivering a wet smooch to the Empress's cheek, which was returned promptly, much to Cornelia's abject, blank-faced horror. She'd been fantasizing about doing that for years, and Nonette, the very second time meeting Marianne, had just done it without even thinking about it...

"Sure, Nonette! You've got a good eye for adorable little boys and that makes you a friend in my book!" Marianne cooed, embracing the knight and ruffling her hair as Nonette rested her chin on Marianne's shoulder and gave Cornelia a sinister leer.

"NEEEEEEEELLLIEEEEEE." Nonette growled again as she rubbed her cheek against Marianne's, as if to say, "this is mine", still giving Cornelia that expression that struck dread into her very core.

"...it... it's good to s... see you again..." Cornelia mumbled, pressing the tips of her index fingers together.

"Good to see you again WHAT." Nonette added, sticking her tongue out playfully, knowing she had Cornelia in the palm of her hand now.

"m-.... m... ma'am." Cornelia coughed, as if she were a feline discharging an unwelcome hairball.

"That's better. Now as I was going to ask you, NELLIE..." She would slink out of the Empress's hug, after which Lelouch would tug on his mother's wrist and whisper something into her ear as she bent down- a desperate plea to let him go back up to his room, perhaps, especially since immediately afterward a defiant Nunnally and Euphemia latched onto him even harder, though their eyes followed Nonette.

"Why wasn't little Lelouch here the last time I dropped by to visit? Are you ashamed of him, sweetheart? He looks like a perfect gentleman to me, and the spitting image of his lovely mother!" Nonette cooed, turning around to shoot Marianne a wink, which, again, to Cornelia's great horror and jealousy, was returned.

Nunnally and Euphemia had first met Nonette Enneagram, now a major in His Majesty's Royal Panzer Infantry, the corps of Knightmare pilots that were fast becoming the backbone of the Empire's new doctrine of warfare, three months ago when she'd dropped by Aries for a visit with Cornelia. Nunnally had been the first person Nonette had encountered upon entry, and had introduced herself as Cornelia's "best friend". As soon as Nunnally had taken Nonette directly to the gardens, where the two children of the late Victoria li Britannia were sitting in the shade of the hedgerow gazebo, she would find out that Nonette's concept of her relationship with Cornelia was considerably different than Cornelia's concept of it. Or at least, that is how it appeared, as Cornelia turned white upon seeing her old friend dropping in without warning- then again, did Nonette ever give anyone any warning?- and downing the rest of Cornelia's lemonade.

Ever since then, however, Nonette's peculiar way of living life had enamored her greatly to the younger two sisters of the "Clan of the Flash". Quite simply, Nonette was _cool!_

Lelouch, already wary of aggressive women, was quite naturally terrified of the knight, especially seeing as how his mother did not wish to protect him and Cornelia was quite obviously incapable of it.

"He was... visiting my brother Schneizel, they play chess on Sunday afternoons and..." Cornelia started, before Nonette turned back to Lelouch with another wicked grin.

"Oh, you play chess with the Second Prince? I hear he's quite good, and so must you be, to provide entertainment for him. Please, you simply must indulge me. We've got some time to kill before we're heading over to the Ashfords', right, Mary?" The Empress would give a slight nod of approval to the knight.

Lelouch glanced between Nonette and Cornelia, seeing his elder sister's pleading expression, and was eventually convinced when Nonette added, "I haven't played in quite a while, I doubt I'll be very good..."

"Very well, why not?" Lelouch took on a confident smirk once again. _This should be quick._

...

"Hm, I think I'm gonna move my horse..." Nonette smirked confidently and picked up the piece.

"Firstly, it's STILL not your turn yet because I STILL haven't moved yet, and second, IT'S A KNIGHT." Lelouch hissed, his grip on the table tightening and his knuckles turning white.

"Can I move here?" Nonette would set it down halfway across the board, knocking Lelouch's queen off the board as she did.

"NO, because it's not your TURN _AND_ because KNIGHTS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!"

"But I thought the horse can jump over guys."

"IT'S NOT A HORSE! IT'S A KNIGHT! AND IT CAN JUMP OVER ONLY TWO _PIECES, _NOT _GUYS, _PER MOVE!"

"Well, I _did _only jump over two guys." Nonette smiled and pointed to her pawn and Lelouch's pawn, not only on the other side of the board, but also two columns away. "My guy and your guy. Then I killed this guy. Now I'm next to your other guy. So, king me."

"YOU CAN'T MOVE THAT WAY, THOSE ARE PAWNS, THAT IS A QUEEN, _THAT_ IS A KING, IT'S NOT YOUR TURN, AND THERE IS NO KING ME IN CHESS!"

"I don't know why you're raising your voice at me, it's just a game. God, Nellie was right, you're such a kid." Nonette blew some hair from her face and reached in for another piece.

"I refuse to play with you until you learn how chess works, Ms. Enneagram. Good day." Lelouch rose from the table, while Nonette raised both fists in the air and grinned.

"I win again! The crowd goes wild!" She then made _haaaaaah_ noises into her hand for a bit as she watched the prince retreat to the safety of his room. "Hm, wonder what Nellie's up to..."

...

"Why do you always have to embarrass me like that, Nonette? You know, I know plenty of embarrassing secrets about you, too... You're not the only one who's got-"

Nonette laughed. "Yes, but Cornelia, y'see, of the two of us, you're the only one who actually cares if people find out. What do I care if people know I pick my nose or pee in the shower or once cut myself so badly shaving my armpits that I had to go to the hospital? It doesn't bother me. Look." Nonette would crack open Cornelia's bedroom window and set her eyes directly on one of the villa's gardening staff, at work digging seed rows for strawberry bushes. "HEY YOU!"

The gardener would drop his hoe and quickly snap to attention. "Yes, mistress!"

"ONE TIME I SUCKED SIX IN A ROW!" Nonette shouted in as deadpan a manner as the volume of her voice allowed.

"... I'm sorry, ma'am?"

"ONE TIME, AT A PARTY, THERE WAS THIS GUY NAMED JOE AND I hmlgpfhff!"

"Sebastian, I COMMAND you to forget everything you just heard!" Cornelia bellowed at the gardener, slamming the window shut with one hand as Nonette struggled to remove herself from the grip of Cornelia's other hand, a hand over the knight's mouth as she flailed.

The gardener shrugged and returned to his work.

"Nonette, were you really about to tell him that-" Cornelia paused, before letting out a shocked, "EWW!" and jerking her hand away from Nonette's mouth, quickly grabbing one of the tissues beside her bed and wiping her hand repeatedly. "Did you just LICK me?"

"Got you to let go of me, didn't it?" Nonette cackled, before reaching over to give Cornelia a brief noogie, the princess ducking away.

"And what the hell were you thinking when you did... that... to Marianne? You practically _felt her up _her right there in front of her own children!"

"I didn't hear any objection." Nonette grinned again and rested back against the wall of Cornelia's bedroom, folding her hands behind her head and idly crossing her ankles. "Maybe she just likes me better than you."

"... Shut up!" Cornelia whimpered, crumpling up the tissue and tossing it into her wastebasket. "It's none of your business anyway! What are you even doing here? Why'd you have to come and ruin a perfectly good evening like this?"

"That doesn't sound at all like the Nellie I know. I thought we were best friends." Nonette frowned and looked up and away. "you're gonna make me cry, Nellie..." she added, giving a few obviously melodramatic sniffles.

"You're not going to have me fall for your crocodile tears again, you witch..." Cornelia growled, but she could hardly look away from Nonette's trembling lip and suddenly wide, teary eyes, and eventually she'd glance down at the floor in shame- both at what she'd done to her friend and at herself for believing Nonette, some part of her knowing that Nonette had to be faking...

"Fine... fine... yes, we're friends, okay, just stop making that face! And don't touch Lady Marianne like that again! At least have some damn decency in front of her kids!"

"Okaaaaay." Nonette replied, before shuffling around behind Cornelia and snaring her in her grasp before the princess realized what was happening.

"Ah! Let go of-" Cornelia started, before realizing it was pointless and going limp, as Nonette leaned in to sniff the back of Cornelia's neck.

"Mmn, you know I missed you, don't you, Nellie?"

"Stop acting like that, Nonette, it's weird... and it's... wrong..."

"You didn't say that the first time..."

"Only because I didn't know any better...! You _tricked_ me!" Cornelia didn't sound all that upset about it.

"You liked it."

"That's irrelevant!" In other words, yes.

"You'd like to do it again."

"Certainly not!"

"You'd like to do it again with Lady Marianne, wouldn't you...?"

"That's disgusting...!" But Cornelia couldn't say no. "Lady Marianne would never..."

"What makes you so sure of that, hmm? Have you ever _asked_? Maybe she's just waiting for you to make the first..."

"Okay, Nonette, that's ENOUGH! You can insult me all you like but don't you dare insult her in my presence!" Cornelia snarled, and flung Nonette's hands aside, stepping out of her grip.

"I wasn't insulting her... quite the contrary, I think she's a very classy lady. I can see why you've fallen so hard for her."

"You've got the _wrong_ idea, Nonette, and it's gross. Stop projecting your sick fantasies on my _family_!"

"She's not even related to you, you know." Nonette paused, before leaning in and adding, "So it wouldn't be incest."

"That doesn't... that's not even... can we _please_ just drop the subject?" Cornelia gasped, grasping the sides of the mirror she was leaning on tightly and hanging her head.

"Fine, fine, keep on lying to yourself, Nellie, but I'll always know the truth about you... if only you had a mirror for your heart as well as for that lovely body of yours..." Nonette cooed as she cracked Cornelia's door open and began to slip out of the room. "Save your last dance for me tonight, Nellie."

"Only if you can keep yourself away from the alcohol, Nonette." Cornelia replied, finally lifting her head and setting her eyes on the dress hanging next to her bed.

Tonight was _definitely_ going to be the worst night of her life.


	3. Queen's Gambit

"Tonight is the worst night of my _life!_" Lelouch whimpered. Surrounded by his most hated enemy, females who thought he was adorable, they'd now added one more to the mix- Milly Ashford, a girl just slightly older than Euphemia, who, though she was a bit more respectful to the prince than his sisters tended to be, still stuck to him like glue as soon as he'd entered the ballroom, and he was lucky that there weren't any dances for a boy and more than one girl, otherwise he'd never get a break from any of them...

"Oh... Uh... I didn't mean because of you, Nunnally." he added, glancing down at his sister who had insisted on taking him for this dance, but was now screwing up her face, her cheeks turning red and tears glistening in her eyes. "It's that Ashford girl, and now even Cornelia's friend looks like she wants to do weird things to me..."

"Nonette? But she's so cool!" Nunnally protested. "She taught me a whole lot of things today! She's really smart!"

Lelouch grimaced as he heard that, flashing back to their chess match earlier. Nonette? _Smart? _Just what the hell had she been teaching his sister...?

"What did she teach you, Nunnally?"

"Well, um, like, about how to get what you want, and stuff." Nunnally added, biting her lip and glancing off to the side.

"... I suppose if she is good at one thing, it's that." Lelouch added, rolling his eyes. "What do you mean, though? She didn't teach you anything _weird_, did she?"

"Well, like, she told me that... if you want something from a boy, you hafta act really weak and stupid and cry a lot, even if you're not sad. But once he gives you what you want it's OK to be yourself again. 'Cause boys are... 'spendable."

"Expendable, you mean? That sounds like a grownup way to think." Lelouch was starting to like this woman less and less- Nunnally was far too young to start thinking like a grownup. In fact, he couldn't imagine her ever thinking like that. He concluded that he never wanted her to.

"Yeah, but it's true, isn't it? You always do what I want when I start crying." Nunnally replied, cheerful at first, before taking on an expression of shock as she realized what she'd just seemingly admitted.

"So you mean... Nunnally, come on, you've never _faked_ it just to get me to..." Lelouch trailed off, his mouth hanging open in shock as a blush crossed his younger sister's face.

"well, uh, maybe I have, but, y'know, it's... a girl thing, okay? I'm on my period!" Nunnally stammered.

This caused Lelouch to choke and stumble in his waltz steps. "Wh-what did... what did you say!?"

Nunnally blushed even harder and looked away. "... uh... what does that mean, Lelouch?"

"Did Nonette tell you to say that?"

"She, uh.. she said that... "that's what a girl can always say to get a boy to shut up." See? It worked!" Nunnally beamed, seeming quite proud of herself.

"Nunnally, that's... just, don't say that again, okay? I'll tell you when you're older." Lelouch glowered across the room at Nonette, who was currently laughing raucously at the bar while Cornelia sat with her friend's arm around her shoulders and seemed to be trying her best to be invisible in that sparkling green dress. As the song began to wind down, however, and Lelouch glanced back at the Ashford girl, there in a black dress covered in pink flowers, with a very predatory look in her eyes for an eleven-year-old, he would shoot Cornelia a glance that said, quite clearly, "Save me!"

"Well, uh, anyway, Lelouch, thank you for the dance!" Nunnally added, stepping back from her brother. Lelouch gave her a little bow as she curtsied.

"Uh... of course, Nunnally, now excuse me..." Lelouch stammered as he watched Milly begin to move toward him. Nunnally skipped off to join Lady Marianne chatting with Milly's parents near the balcony and tug on her mother's dress... and as Lelouch watched her, then turned away, he'd come face-to-face with Milly, who seemed to have moved almost twenty feet in far too short a time, prompting Lelouch to let out a little shout in fright.

"C'mon, Lelouch, this one's mine!" the blonde would add, before another voice would cut her off.

"Actually, Milly, would it be OK if I had this one? I haven't danced with Lelouch all night." Cornelia dropped down a bit to glance at the girl, giving her a sweet little smile. "Please?"

"Aw... Lady Cornelia, I only get to see him at these parties, you practically live with him, it's not fairrr!" the girl would whimper, still clinging possessively to Lelouch's sleeve.

"Hmmm... Is that true, Lelouch? Why haven't you invited Milly over to the villa yet?" Cornelia added, giving Lelouch a little smirk.

At first, Lelouch began to protest, before seeing that look on Cornelia's face. The same mild amusement she wore during their chess matches. Confidence. She had a plan...

"Uh... Milly, would you like to come over next weekend, maybe?"

"I'd love to, Lelouch! I've always wanted to see the royal gardens!"

"Oh, well, uh... then sure, I'll take you." Lelouch gulped. Putting off torment now in exchange for torment later. Perhaps it wasn't the wisest decision to make, but he would much rather dance with Cornelia at the moment and maybe see if he could weasel out of this trap tomorrow...

"I suppose it's a date, then, isn't it?" Cornelia chuckled sweetly before standing again.

"Heh! Sure is! Thank you, Lady Cornelia. He's all yours!" Milly smiled and strolled off to look for Euphemia, who was currently sitting in 'instruction' with Nonette and a group of Milly's friends, including Euphemia, all about her age at the kids' table...

"You really shouldn't leave her alone with those girls, Cornelia..." Lelouch began as he took one of his sister's hands in his and nervously rested the other on her hip. His face exactly level with her bosom, his eyes glancing up into hers.

"So you'd rather I'd ignored you, then?" Cornelia replied, sighing and beginning to coax him into making a few side-to-side motions. "I can't keep her under control and save you from those girls' clutches at the same time..."

"... No... Uh, thank you, Cornelia." Lelouch and Cornelia continued to move for a while, before he eventually added, "... I hate girls."

Cornelia peaked an eyebrow. "Even Nunnally?"

"Of course not Nunnally, don't be _stupid_." Lelouch growled. "She's not a girl, she's my sister."

"Well, she and Euphie are the ones giving you most of your trouble, aren't they?"

"Okay, well, then, fine, that's not what I meant... I don't hate _girls_. I hate the way they _are_. They're so _weird_! And they want me to be like them and they get mad at me when I didn't even _do _anything! And then they get even _madder _at me for not understanding _why _they're mad at me!"

"Tell you a secret, Lelouch?" Cornelia added, leaning down to press her cheek against the top of his head. "It gets worse when they get older."

"... No way, that's got to be a lie. That _can_'_t_ be true! Why would ANYONE ever get married if that was the case?" Lelouch protested, staring up at Cornelia with wide eyes.

"Well, they also get better at being sneaky about it. And at making men interested in them enough to put up with it."

"Interested...? I can't ever imagine being interested in _that_." Lelouch grumbled. "But you're not like that, Cornelia, and you're older...! And Mother's not like that either!"

"Oh, believe me, Lelouch, I'm like that sometimes. I'm just really, _really_ good at hiding it. And you know another secret?" she added, leaning down once again. "Your mother's _so _good at hiding it that even _I've_ never seen it."

"Maybe she's special. Maybe she's not like other girls."

"Oh, your mother's special, all right, Lelouch. She's the most special woman I've ever met." Cornelia added, glancing up at the chandelier. "The normal rules of the world don't seem to apply to her..."

"She said something like that to me, once..." Lelouch recalled, thinking back.

...

"You're right, Lelouch, the world is _not_ fair." Marianne would coo, ruffling her son's hair as he sat in her lap, bawling his eyes out. His and Nunnally's favorite maid, Nancy, had just quit her job and moved away after marrying a businessman in Atlanta.

"It ought to be!" Lelouch whimpered, nuzzling into his mother's hand.

"Of course it ought to be. But it's not." Marianne frowned, before taking on a little hint of a smile and tilting her son's chin up to look in her direction.

"Why don't you change it when you grow up?"

"... how can I do _that_?" Lelouch looked confused. Such an idea was utterly foreign to him.

"I don't rightly know, Lelouch, but I hope to find out. It's not hard to change the rules if you just have the right attitude. When I was your age no one expected me to amount to anything more than a maid like Nancy... Now Nancy's gone and made her life better. Just like I did. You can't blame her for wanting a better life, Lelouch, everyone does." Marianne leaned down to kiss the top of his head, and as she leaned up, Lelouch would still maintain that twisted, deep-in-thought expression on his face.

"So you changed the rules...?"

"I changed them for me, yes. And now I hold the ear of the most powerful man in the world. He may not always like my ideas, but he always listens to them. Sometimes I change his mind, sometimes I don't. Mostly I don't. But it would never have happened if I had done what everyone else said, obeyed the rules and accepted my station in life. I chose to do something different. I chose to be noticed. I chose to be who I really am. And you can, too. And someday you can change the world. Make it better. For you, and for the people you love."

...

"She's a very wise woman, Lelouch. I honestly don't think there's an aspect of her I can't praise. I'm truly honored to know her." Cornelia sighed and gripped Lelouch's hand a little tighter, only to catch a figure approaching them out of the corner of her eye, her breath halting in her chest.

"Oh, come now, Cornelia, you'll make me blush." Marianne chuckled, before glancing between the two. "May I cut in?"

Lelouch glowered and his face turned beet red, and he kicked the marble floor of the ballroom. "Aw, _mooooommmmm_... C'mon, it's embarrassing, boys shouldn't dance with their mothers..."

"Oh, quit complaining, Lelouch, I didn't mean _you_." Marianne chuckled, offering a hand to Cornelia instead, whose blush quickly grew to rival Lelouch's as her breath returned, and quickened.

"Uh... Uhm... I... Your... Your Majesty, I'd... I'd be..."

"Hmmmm?" Marianne tilted her head. "Lelouch, go look after Nunnally for a little bit, would you?"

"Uh... Mom, I-" Lelouch started, but was quickly silenced by a visible bristling on the back of Cornelia's neck, her gaze still fixated on Marianne as pain shot through his knuckles and palms. "ah, okay..." he grunted, slipping away from Cornelia and standing on tiptoes to locate his sister by the children's table again...

"You'd be what, dear?" Marianne added, still keeping her hand extended and lightly wiggling her fingers.

Cornelia clasped onto that hand with both of hers, and let out a breathy, "honored." Eventually adding, "... my lady."

"Well, then, you'd better keep up, because the waltzes are done with for tonight. Time for a tango!" And without further ado, and much to her dizzying delight, Cornelia quickly found her body and cheek pressed tightly to Marianne's. After a few seconds, Cornelia managed to regain her senses enough to keep up with the Empress's movements and try not to be a drag on the dance. It all went in a blur, and she had no idea how well or poorly she'd done by the end of it- all she could remember were a few moments.

-

The Empress whispering, "you ready? dip me." into Cornelia's ear, and Cornelia being flooded with feelings that were strange and terrifying, and the even greater terror that she might drop her... Cradling Marianne like a precious jewel as she swept the Empress off her feet, Marianne would cluck her tongue into Cornelia's ear when it was over, "deeper next time, I barely moved..."

-

A misstep that sent Marianne's foot firmly behind hers, and for that one glorious moment their thighs met.

-

Pain as she misstepped again and Marianne's heel came down on her toes, and in pain Cornelia had flinched and their heads briefly bumped together, but they both held each other close for a short moment before continuing... Marianne acting like nothing had happened, and laughing at Cornelia's inquiry as to whether she was all right.

-

Toward the end of the dance, a bead of sweat that had trailed down Marianne's cheek and stuck to her own... one that, when they turned and pressed the opposite cheeks together, Cornelia stealthily tasted.

-

The last dip of the dance, and it had been Marianne leading, and for that moment that seemed like an age, Cornelia was weightless, supported entirely by her beloved lady Marianne, who gazed down at her and in the light of the chandelier the Empress truly looked like an angel, and she was, after all, the closest anyone would ever come to it on this world anyway, and it was more than good enough for Cornelia, she could stay like this forever, except that she was already coming up again and pressing her face and body to Marianne's was even better, she remembered now...

-

The both of them were flushed and sweating by the end of it, and had drawn vigorous applause from the small crowd around them. Nonette was at the forefront of it, putting her fingers together in her mouth and giving the women a piercing whistle.

"My god, Lady Marianne, but you can dance...!" Horace Ashford, Milly's father, a striking middle-aged man with a bristly moustache, would state admiringly.

"Ah, don't give me all the credit, Horace. Cornelia is a brilliant partner." Marianne tugged the blushing princess closer, before stroking Cornelia's hip, and the princess thought that she would die happy at that moment, that was, until Marianne asked, "but I believe it's getting a bit stuffy in here, so we'll go for some fresh air on the balcony if you all don't mind..."

"Your Majesty...?" Cornelia inquired, looking up at her before Marianne would give her one of her famous smiles with her eyes nearly shut, an utterly irresistible expression on her face.

"Shall we, Cornelia?"

"uhm... Yes... please." she stammered.

...

"Don't worry about it, Cornelia, it barely even hurt." Marianne would assure the girl after Cornelia had spent nearly the entire last two minutes apologizing for her missteps and for that moment where they'd knocked heads, while Marianne continued to reassure her. "I hardly noticed. You and I both know I've had far worse.

"But that still...!"

"I was the one who asked _you_ to dance, Cornelia. And I enjoyed it. Very much. Thank you."

This silenced Cornelia, and she bit her lip and blushed profusely. "Uh... thank you as well, Lady Marianne, I... I don't think I've ever had quite so much fun in my life."

"Well, then, we'll have to practice it more, don't you think? Next year our tango will be perfect." Marianne smiled and reached over to toy with the pearl necklace dangling at Cornelia's throat.

Cornelia didn't utter a word of protest. She would have closed her eyes in enjoyment, but that would have denied her the sight of Marianne's smiling face...

"I... would enjoy that." Cornelia eventually replied.

"So are you still jealous of Nonette?" Marianne finally inquired, and Cornelia's heart plummeted. The game was up. She was exposed. Marianne knew exactly how she felt about... oh, of course she did, how could Cornelia have thought her so blind...! If only she'd been more subtle... No doubt the dance was just Marianne's way of testing her, to see if that was the way she felt, and now that she knew she'd no doubt never want to be alone with her again, it was so _wrong_, why did Cornelia even feel this way...

"y... yes." Cornelia couldn't lie now. Not to her. Never to her.

"Well, don't be. She's not my type." Marianne laughed heartily, and stroked Cornelia's shoulder. "Too much like myself, I suppose. Someone like that, it's no fun to be with. Someone who wears everything on their sleeve and has no mystery about them. I much prefer those who hide inside a shell, a carefully-constructed fortress. A challenge. Or at least, someone who isn't everything they seem... at first glance." Marianne's eyes swiveled to meet Cornelia's. "Not now, Cornelia, you're still a bit... on the unripe side... but someday... Someday I think you will definitely be my kind of woman."

_someday_... That promise of hope flooded Cornelia's heart with joy. She closed her eyes and nearly swooned.

"For now, though... Why don't I leave you with something to remember me by...? Something that will help ease your jealousy." And it was then that Cornelia felt Marianne's voice growing louder, and her breaths hot upon Cornelia's face, and as she opened her eyes she found each of hers staring directly into each of the Empress's.

And then... Marianne leaned in.

And then Cornelia's body was on fire as Marianne's lips met hers.

And the last thing she saw before she fainted was a palm pressed white against the glass of the door to the balcony, and a burning violet eye.

And the last thought that crossed her mind as darkness overcame her was this.

_Tonight was the best night of my life._

...

Cornelia would wake much later in her bed at Aries villa, having slept through feverish and extremely confusing dreams of Knightmares and black hair and beauty and tantalizing torment... As she opened her eyes and saw the familiar surroundings of home, she wondered if indeed it had all been a dream... She flicked her eyes to glance at the rest of the room...

At her bedside, with Euphemia snoring and sprawled out on the floor, a puddle of drool soaking into the carpet by her cheek, was Lelouch sitting on a stool, his head repeatedly nodding as the boy fought sleep, himself.

"...nnh..." Cornelia grunted, shifting under the covers and finally turning to loll her head in Lelouch's direction.

"Lelouch... oh... hello... did I..."

The boy's eyes snapped open and he quickly dropped off the stool and got to his feet, striding purposefully to Cornelia's bedside and bending over her, looking her in the eyes.

"Cornelia..."

"... yes, Lelouch...?"

"You stay away from my _mom._"

And before Cornelia could react, the bedroom door had already slammed shut.


	4. Steering Lessons

"Lelouch, can we _please_ talk about this?" Cornelia trailed her brother, red in the face but with clenched fists, simultaneously ashamed and aggravated. She knew that this must be far more embarrassing for Lelouch than for her, but still... That kiss was _not_ her fault! She hadn't done anything wrong! And, in her opinion, neither had the Empress!

"I don't see what there is to talk about, Cornelia. I caught you red-handed with your tongue halfway down my mother's throat!" The boy hadn't even looked her in the eye since his warning this morning- every time he looked at her, all he could see was that scene on the balcony.

"LELOUCH! That is _gross_! It was just a little kiss on the lips, I've seen your mother kiss _you _longer than that!" Cornelia protested, but knew it was futile. Even though the boy was young, he knew what that kiss had been, and a friendly little kiss on the lips between family it had not.

"Cornelia, that is nowhere near the same thing and you know it." The boy finally stopped in his tracks, crossing his arms and glaring back at his elder half-sister. "I don't _faint_ when my mother kisses me. I don't squish my _body_ against hers like that when I dance with her, I don't... oh, god, that is so _disgusting, _Cornelia, how could you _do _this to me...?" The boy once again went red in the face and glowered at the ground.

"If you _must_ know, Lelouch, _she_ kissed me. I didn't even ask her to. She just-"

"_THAT _MAKES IT EVEN _WORSE!_" Lelouch howled, stamping his foot. "_How_ long has this been going on?!"

"... Um... well, that depends on what you mean by _this_, really..." Cornelia paused, biting her lip.

"How long have you been _in love _with my _mother_?" Lelouch sneered back, the words exiting his mouth with a tinge of acid.

"... probably... ever since I first saw her..." Cornelia would utter meekly, clasping her fingers together and glancing downward. "Lelouch, you can't blame me for how I feel! I can't help it!"

"It doesn't matter whether it's your fault or _not_, Cornelia, that's disgusting! You're a _girl!_ Girls don't... kiss other girls like that! Heck, I don't even think girls ought to kiss _boys_ like that!" Lelouch stammered, blushing profusely as the scene once again entered his head.

"I know... I know, believe me I know. If I could change the way I feel about her I would." Cornelia lied to Lelouch, for the very first time in her life.

"How did this _happen_? How long have you two been doing _that _behind Father's back...?" Not that Lelouch cared how the old man felt. If anything, he'd love to see the look on his face when he found out that he was being cuckolded by his own daughter...

"Oh..." Cornelia paused, shaking her head profusely. "Oh, no, Lelouch, there's no relationship between us. I swear I'm telling the truth. Marianne doesn't feel the same way about me at all." Cornelia stepped forward a bit and moved to seize her brother's hand, only to have it batted away.

"You just told me _she_ was the one who kissed _you!_ At least get your story straight!" Lelouch growled.

"She kissed me because..." The princess trailed off, reconsidering her own thoughts. "well... honestly... I don't know why, but if I had to guess, I think it was because she felt sorry for me. She told me just before that how she felt. That I... wasn't her type of woman yet." Cornelia would brush her thumbs together idly, the blush beginning to fade a bit from her face.

"_Yet? _What's that supposed to mean?" Lelouch's expression widened into a look of horror and suspicion.

_Wait... My mother has a "type" of woman?! Oh, god, I so did not need to know that..._

"Come on, Lelouch, how am I supposed to know that either?" Cornelia protested, looking pleadingly down into her younger half-brother's eyes. "I'm just telling you what happened as honestly as I can. There is _nothing _going on between your mother and I. I feel... _strongly _about her, but she told me specifically last night that it wasn't going to happen. And I'm relieved for it... I wouldn't want to carry on something like that. Something I had to hide. I'm no good at lying to anyone, Lelouch, you know that." Cornelia bit her lip and pressed the tips of her fingers together. "All I can say is that I'm very sorry you happened to see that and that hurting you is the absolute last thing I would ever want to do. And I can promise you that it will _never_ happen again."

Lelouch still had a sour expression on his face, but eventually rolled his eyes. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew Cornelia was telling the truth, that she was sorry, and that she would indeed do her best to keep her promise. "Cross your heart and hope to die?"

"Swallow needles if I lie. I swear it, Lelouch. If I have to push her away myself, I'll-"

"OKAY, Cornelia, I _GET_ IT." Lelouch held both his palms up and flinched, shutting both eyes. "_Please_ stop putting more images into my head. Let's just go on with our lives and _NEVER _SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN."

"Agreed." Cornelia nodded hastily and bit her lip. "So, then... Friends?" She extended a shaky hand.

"Uh... I think I'm gonna need a few days at least. And a few favors."

"... Sure. Whatever you need."

...

"Well, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind when you said you needed a favor, but sure, why not? Still, it seems a bit strange to me. You've got a chauffeur to take you anywhere you want waiting at the palace gates, day or night." Cornelia's car keys jingled, dangling from her left hand as they moved through the garage of Aries Villa. The Empress was not a fan of automobiles, so of the five vehicles in the garage, they all shared a similar plainness of appearance and utilitarian purpose, though there were several different types- three sedans, a large, bulky SUV, and a luxury pickup truck, all black, except for one sedan, which was a royal blue.

This one, Cornelia's automobile, was no exception to that- it was a plain car with very little adornment aside from the Ashford Motors hood ornament, a rearing silver stallion. Cornelia pressed a button on her keychain, the door locks popping up and the car's headlights flashing.

"Well, what if I need to get somewhere secretly someday?" Lelouch would inquire, and Cornelia would slide into the driver's seat while her half-brother slid into the passenger's.

"... That's one reason, I suppose, though I should hope you never do need to do that. Still, if that's your aim, a taxi would actually be a better idea considering your license plate number could always be traced..." Cornelia turned the key, starting the electric motor of the vehicle, which spun up quickly, and the whisper-quiet car would slide out of the automatic garage doors and out the villa's gates.

"Well, what if I'm not driving _my _car?" Lelouch inquired, a little smirk appearing on his face.

"Well, how would you go about-" Cornelia paused, her expression switching to shock. "Lelouch, are you suggesting _stealing_ someone's-"

"Not _stealing_, Cornelia, but maybe borrowing for a while. I don't know. Who would say no to an Imperial Prince?"

"Nobody, but then again, who would say no to His Majesty's secret service later when they were asking if anyone had seen that same Imperial Prince around?" Cornelia smirked. "Besides, you're far too young to be thinking about how to deceive His Majesty, anyway."

"Does that imply that there _is_ an appropriate age for that...?" Lelouch continued, before peering around at their surroundings. Pendragon was smack-dab in the middle of the Sonoran desert- the city had formerly been named Yuma in the Imperial State of Arizona- and upon exiting the city limits, the contrast between the capability of the Britannian elite to transform nature to suit their liking and the harsh environment that Pendragon had sprung up in became clear.

Within the city limits, great pipelines from the west supplied Pendragon with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of fresh water, and the city was a verdant paradise of lush grass and tall, exotic trees that thrived in the city's tropical heat. As soon as one began to enter the outskirts of the city, however, that grass began to fade and become patchy, and the trees disappeared altogether, until finally, before one realized it, one was in the midst of a landscape that seemed so desolate it was a wonder humans ever wished to live in the place to begin with. Sand, interspersed with a few rocks, crags, and mesas here and there, sprawled out all the way to the looming, bare mountains in the distance, and cacti, tumbleweeds, and gnarled, desiccated, thorny bushes and shrubs were the only life visible in the harsh desert.

"That's not what I meant. You're too paranoid, Lelouch." Cornelia replied, flicking her gaze out over the desert as well. Even as she chided her brother for his paranoia, she couldn't help but get the feeling that, all alone out here and far from the protection of the capital, with only the pistol in Cornelia's glovebox for protection, they would be easy prey to ambushers...

"Well, I still think it's a good skill to have. I want to know what it's like. To drive myself around instead of sitting in the back. It looks..." Lelouch paused, shifting his gaze from the desert to the roof... "fun."

"... Well, I'll be honest, it is, for about the first dozen times you do it. Then it just becomes a chore." Cornelia flicked on her turn signal as the car shifted into the deceleration lane of the highway off-ramp, and they came to a halt behind a station wagon at a red light.

"Where are we going again...?" Lelouch inquired, stretching up to look around at the place, with Cornelia rolling her eyes as he did.

"You're going to have the paparazzi swarming us any second if you stick your face against the window like that, Lelouch. I'm not supposed to be doing this- your mother would kill me if she found out..." Cornelia grumbled, but was quickly interrupted.

"Oh, she'd kill you, huh? I thought you two were on very good terms." Lelouch snarked back.

Cornelia winced. "Weren't _you _the one who told me never to speak of that again?" She paused, then took on a wicked grin. "Or do you want me to go into a detailed description of the way she-"

"NO!" Lelouch stammered, holding his hands out in front of his face toward his sister as if shielding an incoming blow. "No, no, I'm sorry, Cornelia, don't. Please. I won't do it again."

"That's what I thought. We're going to a town about thirty miles south of here, St. Louis. There's a mall there that closed about three years ago, I believe the parking lot ought to still be empty- it's been about a year since I drove through there but the last time I did the place hadn't been demolished yet. Good place to practice for most of the afternoon, and then I'm sure your mother will be wanting us home for supper."

"You really think we have to go to all this effort just to teach me...?"

"Yes, of course we do, Lelouch. Unless you want to try taking this baby off-road." Cornelia patted the dashboard. "If we don't hit a cactus, then it'll be about ten seconds until the wheels sink into the sand and get stuck. And in case you haven't noticed, this is _my_ car. I'm rather fond of it. So I don't want you to crash into anything."

"Like you couldn't just buy another one...?" Lelouch groaned, rolling his eyes.

"Not like this one. This one's special." Cornelia added, then blushed a bit as she kept her eyes on the road.

Lelouch noticed it, thought about asking her about it, then thought better of it- he'd only seen Cornelia's face turn red when she was talking or thinking about his mother, and he did _not_ want to hear any more of that today...

They spent the next twenty minutes in relative silence- after a few minutes, Cornelia turned on the radio, and Lelouch continued to nervously twiddle one of his cuff links, but eventually the parking lot and decrepit old mall came into view- the sign on the front was missing most of the letters, and the parking lot had several prominent cracks in the asphalt, through which a few sparse tufts of grass curled up. Cornelia circled the lot for a few minutes, before finding a suitable starting point as far away from any light posts as possible, and brought the car to a halt, shifting into park and withdrawing the car keys, handing them over to Lelouch as they both opened their doors and walked around the front of the car to switch seats. She could have left the keys in, of course, but Lelouch was somewhat glad she hadn't, as he slid the key into the ignition and his heart stirred as he turned it and saw the vehicle's interior lights and displays all spring to life at his touch.

The internal combustion engine for automobiles had fallen far out of favor in the late 20th century A.T.B. with the advent of energy filler systems, and so nearly every automobile in Britannia was wholly electric, with a near-inexhaustible power supply of liquid Sakuradite, which denied Lelouch the satisfaction of an engine coughing and roaring to life, but this was all the same to the boy who had never known such a thing and felt the machine quietly buzzing to life instead was fine by him.

Marvelous, actually.

"Relax, Lelouch. Don't get excited. Excitement means carelessness. I'm sure you've seen how things work. The small pedal at your right is the accelerator. The large one at the center is the brake. DON'T do that." Cornelia added, reaching down to take a firm hold of Lelouch's left leg, prompting a surprised squirm from the boy, and yank it away from the brake pedal.

"ONLY use your right foot to push the pedals. Never both."

"What...? Why!?" Lelouch protested, glancing down at the pedals that seemed designed to be operated by both feet. He'd never looked closely enough to see that this was not the case...

"Because otherwise, when you panic and jam on the brake, at the same time, you'll also have the instinct to jam your other foot down, onto the accelerator. It's just a very bad habit to get into. Only use your right foot." Cornelia explained, leaning over a bit so that they were shoulder-to-shoulder as she watched him. "All right. Place your hands on the wheel- like this-" Cornelia grasped both his hands, and set them firmly on the steering wheel, at the standard ten-and-two-o'clock positions, "and check your mirrors. See anything in your way?"

Lelouch, instead, turned to stare at Cornelia. "We're in an empty lot." _Duh, _was the unspoken addition.

"... I know that, Lelouch." Cornelia replied, just as deadpan. "Driving well is all about developing habits. You need to develop the habit of checking your mirrors every time you want to take the car out of park. Otherwise... well, uh..." Cornelia bit her lip and glanced to the side. "Well, this thing needed a fresh coat of paint about five months ago for just that reason. Pulling out of parallel parking is especially tricky... but that's a lesson for next time. For now, check your mirrors, turn and look over your shoulder, and make sure you're clear. Then hit the brake, grasp the shifter and press the button, and slowly push it up from P to D, keeping the brake firmly pressed down. You need to have the vehicle completely stopped and the brake pressed every time you want to shift." Cornelia waited for Lelouch to finish looking around, before nodding. "Ready? Go."

A short moment later, the car was in drive, and rolling forward ever-so-slightly.

"You'll have to press harder, Lelouch."

"I can't reach...!" Lelouch whined in protest, straining to push his foot down as far as he could without losing sight of the parking lot.

"... I figured as much. You're still too small for this. Put it back in park." Cornelia replied, and waited for him to do so, reluctantly, before opening her door. She'd walk around to the driver's side and open up Lelouch's door, with the boy frowning and glancing up at her.

"Damn... I guess this means we're done, huh...?"

"Well, there is another way, but you might not like it." Cornelia added, tilting her head and smiling.

...

"... Well, this is... uh... awkward..." Lelouch muttered. His hands were on the wheel once again, and his right foot was on the brake, but between it and the brake was Cornelia's foot, and he sat upon her lap.

"You're not the one being sat on, Lelouch." Cornelia replied, curling her hands around her brother's stomach. "But you wanted to learn how to drive, and I'm not going to let you drive unless you can see. So just push on my foot when you would otherwise push the pedal, and let me know when you want to switch pedals. ... Needless to say, if I think you're going too fast or we're about to hit something, I'm going to stop you whether you say so or not. I think this way is a little safer, to be honest. So until you grow about six inches, this is how we're doing it."

"... Okay... Here goes, I guess..." He and Cornelia pressed down on the brake, and switched into drive, and slowly released their grip on the brake as the car began to slowly roll forward.

"Stay at this speed for a while. Learn how the car responds to the wheel." Cornelia advised him, her chin resting on his shoulder. Lelouch would slowly twist the wheel to the left and right, and his feeling of awkwardness would slowly fade as it was replaced by the thrill of actually being in control of the vehicle.

"Wow... I'm driving!" Lelouch chirped enthusiastically.

"Not yet, you're not. You're just steering." Cornelia corrected him. "Make a right turn. Head toward the mall."

"Okay..." Lelouch followed suit, and soon, at a crawl, the car had made three successive turns and circled the lightpost- then done so turning left. Eventually he'd turn the vehicle to get at the back end of that parking lane, facing the mall again, and bringing it to a stop when Cornelia asked.

"Ready? Now be VERY delicate with this. Just push the accelerator with your big toe- not the rest of your foot." Cornelia did her best to translate his pressure into hers as he pressed down on the pedal in question, and his awkward, jerking push would sent the car jolting forward and their bodies lurching simultaneously.

"That wasn't very delicate." Cornelia chided.

"That wasn't me, that was _you!_" Lelouch argued, and glared at his sister in their slight reflection on the windshield.

"I was doing exactly what you were, Lelouch. But if you want to argue, we can head home right now."

"Okay, okay... I'll be more gentle." Slowly, he applied pressure to Cornelia's foot, and in turn, she would slowly accelerate the car until they were rolling along at a decent speed.

"Much better. Make sure to slow down before you make a turn... turn here."

...

It would be a thrilling three hours of lessons, and by the end of it Lelouch had not only learned to drive, steer, and make K-turns, Cornelia had also given him an improvised road test, pretending the parking lot was a town and that several junctions were actually intersections, complete with stop signs, traffic lights, and other drivers, as well as chiding Lelouch for rolling through a "stop sign" instead of coming to a complete halt.

Tomorrow, they'd learn to parallel park. Lelouch couldn't wait.

And he felt curiously less awkward about having to sit in Cornelia's lap again.


	5. Gentle Giants

"Did you and Cornelia have a fight?" Euphemia tilted her chin in Lelouch's direction, slinking an arm around her half-brother's back. Almost anything was sufficient to distract Euphemia from her harp practice- especially the appearance of her favorite half-sibling- and so it was routine for Lelouch to hide for a while before revealing himself, but to leave a little of himself just barely visible, just as routine as it was for Euphie to periodically search for someone who might be hiding and call Lelouch out when she saw him.

Lelouch would rarely admit it, but watching Euphemia play the harp... it was almost as good as driving. Listening to it, however...

Well, she _did _ditch practice fairly often. For example, now.

"... A little bit. We made up, though, Euphie, so don't worry about it." Lelouch replied, and leaned in closer. Euphemia's hugs were an amnesiac. Once in her embrace, he never could remember anything that had been bothering him. Just seeing her smile, her cheek, warm against his. It was strange, because Lelouch wasn't sure why this was the case. The effect Euphie had on him was a mysterious one. Even Nunnally on her best days couldn't match this feeling- or rather, as comforting as Nunnally's company was, it was always interlaced with a heavy layer of worry on Lelouch's part.

_Nunnally's a girl I have to be strong for_. _Euphie's a girl who knows my weakspots..._

Sometimes it disturbed him how easily Euphie slipped past any barrier he put up and any affectation he made of a sour mood or an embarassed countenance and extracted her prize despite all odds- a smile from Lelouch's lips, however small. But today she didn't have to fight for it. Today nothing at all disturbed him.

"What would you two possibly have to fight about?" Euphie wondered, biting her lip and looking to the sky even as she stroked over his back.

"I don't know, Euphie, it was something stupid, that's all." Lelouch sighed and looked toward her harp, reaching in and plucking a few strings, and soon afterward her hand joined his- her hands were so soft- and reached in to pluck two strings to each of his one- turning what had been idle toying into a few harmonious chords and scales. It wasn't a song- it didn't have any semblance of rhythm to it, but it did have a pleasing sort of harmony. Lelouch felt as though, if Euphie had her way, this was all she would play on the harp. Something that required no serious practice or sustained effort but just something that was pleasing to listen to all the same, as if that was all the harp was there for, that colossal, expensive instrument just existed to make a few nice noises, none of the complicated music her teacher asked her to learn. It was a ridiculous thought, but... seeing the smile on her face grow wider and brighter as they did this, it also made a lot of sense to Lelouch right then in that moment.

_Sure, why not...? _If it got her to smile like this, Lelouch would buy her a whole orchestra's worth of them even if she only plucked one string a day.

That thought forced an even wider smile out of him as he thought of the ridiculousness of such a notion- and another part of it made him smile when he realized he was imagining himself as Euphemia's husband.

"Well, okay." Euphie laid her cheek on his shoulder, grasping his hand suddenly and interlacing her fingers with his. "Thank you for staying with me for her last night. I didn't realize how sleepy I was... but I guess you were there when she woke up, huh?"

"Yeah, but that's OK, I needed to talk to her anyway." Lelouch sighed and reached back with his free hand, stroking it through Euphemia's hair.

"Please don't be too mean to Cornelia, she means well, y'know." Euphemia's arm curled around his waist and squeezed him rather tightly.

"She's supposed to be the commander of the Emperor's whole army someday, isn't she...?" Lelouch inquired idly.

"I guess, yeah... that's what Father says." Euphemia replied.

"Funny, I don't see how anyone could be scared of her." Lelouch laughed to himself, before Euphie would join in with a little giggle of her own.

"Well, c'mon, Lelouch, she'd never show her mean side to us. I mean, I could say the same thing about your mother, and she used to be a warrior too, right?"

"Well, a pilot, they're different." Lelouch protested, gazing out over the gardens. "I can't imagine Mother ever hurting anyone either..."

"Neither can I." Euphemia lied, as she vaguely recalled a time she had seen Marianne's gentleness fade, _once..._

...

"_Really, _Lamperouge, to accuse _my _daughter of that, you forget your place. Carline didn't _push_ anyone, I'm sure your daughter was simply rooting around in the muck like the filthy commoner she is, and now she wants to blame it on someone else. It seems Nunnally's destined to be exactly the kind of lying whore her mother-"

Later, when the ringing had left her ears, the taste of blood had left her mouth, and the sting of the Emperor's decision that she'd been "asking for it" had left her cold heart, the Duchess le Britannia would muse, in private, that the Empress had one hell of a right hook.

...

"Have you and my son settled your differences, then?" Marianne draped her arms over Cornelia's shoulders and rested her chin atop her protege's head.

"Please, Your Majesty, don't..." Cornelia protested, though she made no move to stop her. "If Lelouch sees us he'll get the wrong idea again."

"Aw, you're that worried about him?" Marianne curled her lips into a cheshire-cat grin, squeezing Cornelia even tighter.

"Well, he was extremely upset about... last night." Cornelia swallowed a lump in her throat.

"And what about you? Were _you _upset about last night?"

"... you know I wasn't."

Marianne's arms slowly slinked away from Cornelia's shoulders and her chin lifted from the violet-haired princess's head, though she would break contact with Cornelia only after swishing a curvaceous hip to bump against hers. "You're so cute, Cornelia. You'll make someone a wonderful wife someday."

"... I can't imagine ever marrying, Lady Marianne." Cornelia admitted, the blush still tingling on her cheeks as she walked forward and rested her hands on the edge of the balcony. "It would always seem like simply settling for less."

"And you think Charles was my first choice?" Marianne chuckled as she rested her elbows on the same railing, leaning back to look out over the gardens.

Cornelia couldn't help but stifle a giggle at that notion, turning to look into Marianne's eyes, and eventually raising an eyebrow. "You can't possibly be serious...?"

"He's such a _grouch_. And his feet stink. And he never tells me he loves me."

"Does he...?" Cornelia inquired, out of sheer curiosity, fearing that she would regret it as soon as the words escaped her lips.

"Well, I don't know, really. He's got a hundred and seven others where I came from, but then again, I _am_ the only former commoner of the bunch, but then again, I _was_ also a top Knightmare pilot, forgive my boasting." Marianne reached over to ruffle Cornelia's hair, and once again, Cornelia did not - could not - move to stop her, or even to brush her hair back into order once it had been thrown into chaos by those delicate pale fingers.

"It's not boasting, Lady Marianne, you _are_ the best Knightmare pilot who has ever lived."

"Again, you, with the flattery, c'mon, weren't you the one who just told me to stop? But yes... I do think he loves me, somewhere deep down inside. But then again, perhaps many of his wives think that, and I don't know if it's within him to love more than one person in that way."

"He loves himself." Cornelia scowled as she glanced down the pillar that supported the balcony beneath her, toward a tuft of orange-fuschia jungle flowers that had been artfully lanscaped to seem as if they were naturally sprouting from the base.

"You would be surprised, Cornelia. He never wanted to be the Emperor." Marianne lifted a hand, observing a mosquito that had sunk its proboscis into a capillary on her knuckle, watching it make a meal of her, with Cornelia looking on in bizarre fascination...

"Aren't you going to...?"

"Nah." Marianne brought her hand a bit closer to her face, her right eye looking directly into the compound eyes of the insect piercing her skin. "Why should I? She only needs a few drops of my blood to lay her eggs and have a family of her own. Why should I begrudge her so little when I've been given so much?"

"That's going to itch later..." Cornelia hissed through her teeth in sympathetic anticipation.

"So then, it'll itch." Marianne watched the mosquito withdraw its stylet and clean its front legs briefly before lifting off and buzzing into the dusky purple sky. "Bye-bye!" she'd wave gently at the insect before turning to Cornelia with a smirk.

"I don't think you'll ever cease to fascinate me, Lady Marianne..." Cornelia stated, as a simple fact, her eyes gazing up in awe into her mentor's.

"Charles has told me, and I believe him, that he'd rather have a simpler life than this. But one thing that he and I have both learned, in the course of our lives, is that no one ever has the life they wish they did. The best we can do is try our hardest to change it, without causing harm to the people we love.

"This isn't the perfect life I'd imagined, once upon a time, but you know..." Marianne smiled broadly as she leaned forward and glanced over the garden path, toward Lelouch and Euphemia returning arm in arm, with the latter leaning heavily on the former... "It's perfectly good enough for me. As long as I can be here with my family." She'd turn to glance directly back into Cornelia's eyes, letting that stare linger for a moment, before clapping her hands together, causing Cornelia to jump a bit. "All right! Dinner time! I believe Lucia said it was taco night!" Lucia, an eccentric, pudgy, middle-aged lady from a hot country in between the Empire's two primary continents, was Marianne's favorite of the Aries villa cooking staff, though Cornelia preferred those with a more traditional menu...

"Taco night!? I LOVE taco night!" came an enthused squeal from far below them. Marianne was not the only one who loved Lucia's cooking.

"Well, c'mon in and get changed for dinner, Euphemia!" Cornelia called down to her sister.

"Kaaay-"

"And _don't_ forget to wash your _hands_ this time!"

"That goes for you, too, Lelouch!" Marianne called after them.

"Okaaay, Mooom..." Lelouch groaned.

"Cornelia, could you go fetch Nunnally from her nap downstairs...?" Marianne inquired as she turned toward Cornelia, but Cornelia was already moving, merely giving Marianne a nod back as she opened the sliding door between the balcony and the upstairs parlour.

"Of course, but I'll be a bit late for dinner," Cornelia added, glancing to her watch, "the sentries change over in five minutes and-"

"Right, right. Thank you, Cornelia, I'm glad I have someone like you to protect my family." Marianne gave Cornelia a sweet smile, prompting another blush and a deep feeling of pride swelling within Cornelia's chest.

"Of course, your Majesty. I'll always protect you."


	6. With Your Shield

"CORNELIA LI BRITANNIA!"

The ten-year-old Lelouch had a surprisingly powerful bellow, one that was obviously going to develop into one to rival his father's one day, especially if he took on the man's broad figure... He stood, a determined but icy scowl on his face, in the doorway. Outside, the plaque on the door that rested halfway open read:

COMMANDING OFFICER

IMPERIAL GUARD

ARIES COMPANY

Cornelia's fingers ceased their clacking on her keyboard, pausing her work- she'd been filling out the official report on the Empress's autopsy. Being present there, and having to observe the autopsy in progress, was a task she found extremely distasteful but one that she would let no other person in the guard perform. All deaths in the Imperial family that were suspected to be homicide required several witnesses present at the autopsy- Cornelia had been satisfying the requirement of an official of the guard, while Schneizel had been satisfying the requirement of a member of the royal family. Although Cornelia was also royalty, one person could not satisfy multiple requirements, for the obvious fact that multiple witnesses were required in case one of the witnesses also happened to be the murderer...

The autopsy had been grim and clinical, as it ought to have been, and the cause of death, though obvious, had eventually been proclaimed to be massive internal hemorrhaging due to multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. Twenty-two, to be precise. Twenty-two entry wounds and sixteen exit wounds- eight 5.7-millimeter hollowpoint slugs remained within her body, while, if the hospital's report was accurate, seven of those that had exited Marianne's body had gone on to strike Nunnally's legs, doing most of their damage above the knee, and a shrapnel ricochet had taken Nunnally's eyesight. The girl would never see or walk again, at best- at worst, it was unsure whether she would ever wake up.

One of Cornelia's most trusted lieutenants, a young nobleman with a spiky teal buzzcut by the name of Jeremiah Gottwald, stood outside the door and just behind Lelouch, ready, with a gesture of his hand asking Cornelia whether this was what she wanted, to snatch the boy by his collar and drag him out. Prince or not, and regardless of his tragedy, one did not barge into the commander's office without permission.

"Shut the door, Lelouch." Cornelia replied, her voice icy and dull. Heartless. Just like her newfound reputation. The past three days, Lelouch had listened in, usually while hiding, on just about every gossiping discussion between the nobles he was convinced were responsible for his mother's death... but now, his suspicions had a new target. Now he knew what Cornelia had done that day. And how she'd been acting afterward...

_"Hasn't shed a single tear for her so-called beloved lady Marianne yet..." _

_"Just gone about her business, as if nothing has changed. It's disgraceful. Everyone knows she had a hand in what happened." _

_"Well, it looks like she is Charles's daughter after all... neither of them seem broken up about it in the least... wouldn't be surprised if they both did it." _

Lelouch slammed Cornelia's door shut, and his lip curled up in a half-sneer, half-snarl- both contempt and fury flared up in him at the same time. She obviously did not want her men to hear this discussion. No doubt because she knew what he was about to accuse her of.

"Why didn't you finish her off, huh? Why'd you leave Nunnally mutilated like that instead of just snuffing her out like you did to Mother? Why didn't you go for the complete set and kill me too!?" Lelouch's eyes were brimming with tears, but his voice, although shaky, was cold and faintly pitying. He truly did pity her, if she felt as though Marianne, a woman who, Lelouch firmly believed, had never- _would_ never- do wrong to anyone, deserved to die.

Cornelia remained silent, but her knuckles turned sheet white as she gripped the arm of the commander's chair. "Lelouch... you are making a mistake." It took every ounce of energy she had to utter those words in the same calm, even tone of voice she'd used before.

"Not as big as the one you made, _sister_." Lelouch's voice dripped with venom, and he made that word sound like the vilest of insults. "You'll pay. You can kill me now if you like, kill everyone that even smiled in Mother's direction, but you'll never, ever escape justice. You just made the biggest mistake of your life, and you'll live to regret it, I swear it."

Lelouch curled his hand into a triumphant fist as he saw Cornelia finally acknowledge her guilt. Finally look down in shame into her lap! Finally streak her cheeks with... tears?

Finally... start... sobbing?

He'd expected her to flinch back at his assault, but this was...

"You have no idea..." Cornelia gulped back hot tears into her throat, mingled with mucus as she reached up to wipe her nose, "how right you are, Lelouch..."

"So it was you! You admit it, then?" Lelouch slammed his fist upon the desk. "ANSWER ME!" he bellowed.

The door cracked open a bit, as Cornelia's lieutenants prepared to rush to her defense, and the commander would snap her head up and bark, her tears flinging to the side with the ferocity of her motion, "GET OUT! Don't you DARE interrupt us again!"

The door slammed shut, and there was a lingering silence punctuated by Cornelia's sniffles.

"We were getting to your confession." Lelouch added, scowling at his sister after he'd judged that she'd had enough time to compose herself.

"You're absolutely right," Cornelia finally stammered out, taking a long moment to inhale, wipe her nose, and dry her eyes with her gloves. "I made a mistake that I will regret for the rest of my life." She glanced down into her lap again. "I failed her."

"You... You didn't just _fail _her! You BETRAYED her!" Lelouch roared, sweeping an arm across her desk and sending her pencils and calendar scattering across her carpet.

"No, Lelouch." Cornelia stated, her voice firm and her eyes harsh as she stared back at him.

A thick, repulsive _tchuh_ filled the air, as Lelouch spat harshly into Cornelia's face. She closed her eyes a moment, then opened them again, not even moving to wipe the saliva rolling down her cheek.

"LIAR!" the boy roared, and then jabbed his finger directly toward her eye, which did not blink.

"You betrayed her and all of us! The Empire! Your own blood! Your own _family_! You sold her out! I know it's true, Cornelia, so stop lying to me! You've already confessed!" Lelouch finally dropped his hand to his side, shuddering in indignation, and inwardly wondering who the hell would let themselves be spit on without retaliation.

"Now let's stop this pathetic game, Cornelia. You and I both know you'll never get what you deserve for what you did, because there isn't punishment enough in this world _or_ the next, so what will it hurt to spill the rest? Out with it, Cornelia! I want answers! Who made you do it? Who made you pull Mother's guard back right when she was most vulnerable!? Who told you to leave her without any protection whatsoever at the one time she needed it most!?" Lelouch was now roaring right into Cornelia's face, his breath hot against her nose as the boy stood on his tiptoes to reach that far.

"You wouldn't believe me." Cornelia replied, quite simply.

"Oh, that's where I think you're wrong, Cornelia. I've suspected _him _for quite a long time- I knew he was against us even before Mother's death. It only makes sense, after all. He's the one man whose orders you can't refuse. Apparently, even if it means betraying the people you're supposed to protect. What _wouldn't_ you do for that despicable man, I wonder, Cornelia?" Lelouch would growl, crossing his arms. Though he was still a few inches beneath her, he did his best to look down contemptuously upon his elder sister.

"If the Emperor commanded you, would you get down like a dog? Bark and pant and lick his face when he comes home? Grovel and kiss his feet? Wallow in filth for him? Take off all your clothes and-"

Cornelia finally had had enough.

**"YES!"** she roared back into his face, sending the boy stumbling back and, much to Lelouch's own shame, letting out a pitiable squeak.

"If I could have saved Marianne by doing any of that, I would have done it gladly as many times as he asked, Lelouch. If I could go back in time and change what I did, I would debase myself lower than the most piteous insect. I would drink boiling water and swallow filth. I would allow myself to be tortured, humiliated, destroyed utterly, any of these acts or all of them. I would suffer any of these fates to change what happened to Her Majesty and to Nunnally."

"You're lying." Lelouch stammered, but his heart wasn't so sure anymore.

"I don't care if you believe me or not, Lelouch. As you said. It doesn't matter how I feel. What matters is what happened, and what happened under my watch, under my responsibility, is something that can never be forgiven."

Cornelia tapped a pair of keys on her computer, and soon enough the creaking of rollers inside the printer would fill the air, a single document on official letterhead exiting the print slot. Cornelia would then withdraw her royal signet and plunge it into the pool of hot wax kept on the corner of her desk, affixing her seal to the document and signing it with a fountain pen.

"What are you doing?" Lelouch would growl as he watched Cornelia at work. "What is that?"

"My letter of resignation. I failed in my duty and I no longer deserve to hold this billet."

Lelouch stared at it for a moment, before bursting out in guttural laughter, laughter that sounded far too sinister to be coming from a child.

"Cornelia, if you think _that _will satisfy me-"

"I never thought it possible, Lelouch, but your arrogance has managed to astound me once again if you think this has anything to do with _you_." Cornelia replied icily. "I began drafting this the moment I wiped the blood from my uniform. I can't protect anyone anymore, Lelouch. I can't be a bodyguard. Not to you, not to Nunnally, certainly not to Euphemia. I'm joining His Majesty's Royal Panzer Infantry next week- my commission has already gone through. I will lay down my shield and take up a sword." Cornelia lay down the letter on the desk, sliding it into a manila folder and winding the cord shut to seal the envelope.

Lelouch laughed again, though it was more of an inward, sarcastic chuckle this time.

"You make it sound so noble, Cornelia. You also make it far too easy for me to take my revenge. Even royalty is always in grave danger on the battlefield, and the armor of a Knightmare will not save you from my wrath..."

Lelouch would suddenly come face-to-face with the gleaming handle of Cornelia's letter opener.

"If you want your revenge, then take it now." Cornelia replied coolly. Lelouch's fingers curled around the handle, gripped it tightly.

The boy began to imagine how best to dispatch his sister- what would be the quietest way to kill her and escape this office before her guards came in to check on her- whether he had enough strength to plunge the letter-opener directly into Cornelia's heart, or whether it was better to stab it into her windpipe, or slice her throat, or plunge it into one of her cold eyes. Eventually, however, with Cornelia still staring at him, waiting, her arms limp at her sides, seemingly welcoming death, Lelouch would lower the letter-opener and shake his head.

"Not until you tell me everything. Then I'll start from the top down. Work my way down the list. From the bastard responsible, to the lowliest peon who cooperated with him. But first I need to know who to find to get more answers. Who was it who ordered you to withdraw the guard?" Lelouch growled. "It was him, wasn't it? That bastard... Our father...!"

"I told you you wouldn't believe me." Cornelia stated.

"... What..?" Lelouch half-gasped, incredulous, as if the wind had suddenly gone out of his sails. The letter opener hit the carpet with a dull thud. "... It... It wasn't... He was in on it, though, right!?" Lelouch added, sweeping a hand toward Cornelia. "He had to be! How could the assassins even have gotten in here without him opening the door for them!?"

"Lelouch, the Emperor was at the Ivory Gardens, forty miles away from here, the entire morning of Marianne's assassination, observing the military parade. He had at least half a dozen cameras trained on him the entire time, and I've checked, it wasn't one of his body doubles. Even if he _was _in on it, he could not have assisted the assassins in getting inside. Don't think he wasn't my first suspect, either. But at the very least, he did not actually do the deed, nor did he let them in. Whether he had anything to do with it or not, I cannot tell you."

"You say that as if you don't..." Lelouch started, but as he looked into Cornelia's eyes, and a terrible, awful thought occured to him, his voice trailed off into a croak. "know...?"

_What if she wasn't lying?_

Cornelia closed her eyes and glanced down again. Hanging her head in shame. Well, Lelouch told himself, she had a lot to be ashamed for! Even if she didn't actually help murder the Empress, there was still the matter of-

"The guard! Why did you withdraw it!? Who was it? Whose order?"

"Hers."

Lelouch's throat squeaked again, as he started to ask who she meant- any number of women in the royal family wanted his mother dead- but as soon as his vocal chords had begun to vibrate his brain resounded with the shock of the sudden, awful, unthinkable realization and his question died before forming on his lips.

Surely she didn't mean...!

"... You... you don't... you _can't_ mean...!" Lelouch stammered, his face going pale.

"She told me..." Cornelia began, slumping down into her chair again. "that she was having a very secret meeting. _So_ secret... that she couldn't risk anyone listening in on it. Absolutely no one. Not even her most trusted bodyguard."

Lelouch's heart plummeted. His throat went dry. His face felt cold and prickly, and he couldn't stop blinking, or curling and uncurling his fingers. At first he knew it had to be a lie. But the more he thought about it, the more he reviewed his sister's actions, her words... all the times he'd seen her and Marianne together... And then an even more terrible memory surfaced in his head.

...

"Lelouch, Mommy's got something very important to do today, so why don't you go over to Clovis's and play a few matches with him?" Marianne would tilt her head, sweetly smiling and ruffling her son's hair. "You could stay with Nunnally and Ms. Alstreim, but they'll be playing lots of girly games and they'll probably try to stick you in a dress again! Of course, if you liked wearing it I can ask them to-"

"No, no, NO! I'll go to Clovis's, Mom, _please _don't make me play with them again!" Lelouch whined and squirmed to get away from his mother's grasp. He did NOT want to go to another tea party with Nunnally and Anya, dear god, anything but that...!

...

"If only I had gone to that tea party..." Lelouch murmured to himself, blinking back hot tears. Cornelia was... telling the truth. Her mother _had_ wanted him out of the house that morning. And she'd apparently thought Nunnally and Anya would be playing together in the gardens all day... And then her visitor had done something she'd never expected...

Lelouch's face burned with shame. He'd spat on Cornelia...! Called her a traitor...! He'd even been ready to kill her! And she'd just sat there and taken it, when all along, she was just...

Had he ever known Cornelia to lie to _anyone_, even once?

Eventually he braced himself on the desk. Apologizing was not an option, and it was pointless anyway. He had to know more.

"You mean to say that..."

"She told me I had to keep it a secret even from the Emperor. And my heart swelled with pride... that Lady Marianne was trusting me with keeping a secret from the Emperor himself. I couldn't let her down. I made sure I followed her order... to the letter. Every last guard was removed. Every camera cut, every feed disabled, every bug stripped. I didn't care what she was doing, what she was plotting, who she was plotting with. I wasn't ever going to risk anyone finding out her secret and exposing her to the Emperor. I made sure... that she was unguarded, and unwatched. Just as she requested. ... And just as they'd planned."

"So whoever was..."

"Whoever was meeting with your mother that day, Lelouch, is the one who killed her. Someone your mother trusted more than the Emperor himself, or at least, someone she didn't want him to know she was seeing. I've spent the last three days trying to find out who that person could have been. All I've been able to come up with is the weapon they used."

Cornelia turned her computer monitor, showing Lelouch a few images of a compact, modern-looking submachine gun.

"The Colt Gladius P33k. A personal defense weapon used by tank crews in the New Guinea war. Designed for use in close quarters, it also found popularity with female combat infantry, as well as the smaller males, for its light weight and compact design. The P33 was the standard-issue. This is an even more compact version of the original. It could probably fit in an average-sized handbag or laptop case with no trouble. It has a very unique cartridge, fin-stabilized 5.7-millimeter sabot. No other weapon that went into mass production uses it."

"I don't need the history lesson or the sales pitch, Cornelia. Explain why this means anything." Lelouch demanded. He gritted his teeth. Now he knew it had to be the truth.. or at least, it was what Cornelia believed to be the truth. Or else Cornelia was putting on such a deception for him that she was going against everything he had thought, up to now, to be her nature.

"If they wanted a weapon they could easily conceal, they would have gone with a handgun. This is a weapon that's designed for use by women. I believe it's a very safe bet that Marianne's killer is a woman, and a small one at that- though this is pure conjecture on my part, the bullet pattern I traced in the lobby- a tight grouping followed by a wild swing upward- I believe that whoever shot your mother had some training with firearms, but trouble controlling that weapon's recoil, as if it were overpowering her. Therefore we are looking for a very petite woman with military training." Cornelia stated definitively.

"Or at least, it is a good place to start. It's better than nothing, which is what the official investigation has."

"The official investigation...?" The boy's expression began to twist from shame and impatience into suspicion.

"Has been suspended by His Majesty until after Marianne's funeral. And though I do not believe he helped murder Her Majesty, there is something extremely suspicious about his actions immediately following the murder." Cornelia replied. "He cordoned off the villa, but _not_ as a crime scene. Invoked the Imperial Homeland Security privilege, claiming it was a terrorist attack, and had the area sealed for three hours. When it was unsealed, and became an official crime scene, the bullet holes and bloodstains and the mess- all the usual evidence, you'd think- were still present, but the carpets..." Cornelia trailed off, turning her computer monitor back to face her.

"The _carpets_? What about them?"

"They were too clean. The maids steam-cleaned the carpets only once a week, and it had been five days. The detectives went through the carpets with a fine-toothed comb and didn't find a single hair, fingernail, footprint- nothing. What was worse was that they also detected traces of an industrial-grade solvent on the rug at the foot of the steps."

"He got rid of the evidence...!"

"It very much seems like it. We can't prove anything, though. And no one in the official investigation would dare pursue- or even look like he was pursuing- the Emperor as a suspect. This case is going to go cold, wither, and die in their hands."

"Then they're going to get away with it." Lelouch snarled, before Cornelia interrupted him.

"No, Lelouch. No, they will not."

Lelouch paused. The boy thought back... _the _official _investigation_... _"pure conjecture on my part"... "we are looking for"... "All I've been able to come up with"... _

"You're... you're conducting your own investigation...?"

"In secret, of course. Now that I know that the Emperor himself is determined that this not come to light, I have to be very careful about where I seek out information and who I trust." Cornelia replied, crossing her arms as she leaned forward.

"You would defy the Emperor, for..."

"For Marianne, I would slay him myself." Cornelia stated. "But killing him now won't bring her back, and it won't be justice, either. You said it yourself. Not until we find and destroy every single person who was involved." Cornelia extended her gloved hand to her brother across the desk.

"Help me, Lelouch."

The boy swallowed a heavy lump in his throat, and faced his sister with a determined scowl.

"... If even one word was a lie, Cornelia, I swear..."

"As do I. I will not resist if you ever think I've betrayed you or lied to you and you wish to end my life. I made a promise to Her Majesty to never let anyone hurt you, and I've already broken it myself. I couldn't go on living if I broke it again."

There was silence for a good while... Eventually, Cornelia closed her eyes mournfully and began to retract her hand, only to feel it seized by an iron grip. A strength in Lelouch's arm that she had never felt before, that she'd never suspected the boy possessed.

"We have a contract, then. See that you uphold it." Lelouch stated with a grim sort of satisfaction.

"And you, Lelouch." Cornelia's voice took on a much sterner tone than before. "You will uphold your end. You will not do anything that will put yourself, Nunnally, or Euphemia in needless danger. You will not do anything risky without telling me first. You will keep this a secret. You will protect them when I am gone. You will pick up your mother's shield and defend this family. You are the man of the house now, Lelouch. They depend on you." Cornelia paused, and added, "... and so do I."

Lelouch's hand closed tighter around Cornelia's, and the boy- no, the man, he was one now, no matter his age- would give a solemn nod.

"This contract... I accept."


	7. Majesty

"Announcing his Imperial Highness, 11th Prince of the Empire, Lelouch vi Britannia!"

The throne room's great doors were tall and broad enough to easily accommodate a Knightmare frame, yet through the use of a sophisticated pulley system they could be swung open or shut mere moments after the Emperor's command, or that of his chief of staff, the Duke of Mexico, Lord Wilfred Samuel, who had carefully constructed the Emperor's list of audiences for the day.

Looking down his monocle at the young prince in the doorway, a great sigh of displeasure rose in his chest as he realized the boy was not one of them. He took a knee just beside the Emperor's throne, and was about to speak before Charles held up a gloved hand, murmuring quietly, "No, Samuel, I have a feeling this will be quite entertaining."

Charles kept his stern, no-nonsense expression, but inwardly he was simultaneously beaming with pride and salivating with anticipation. Was his own son really going to march in here and boldly accuse him of murder to his face, in front of the entire court? If he was, Charles had half a mind to promote him to the first heir to the throne right then and there- and the other half would insist that he could not afford to jeopardize his plan, and that Lelouch ought to be silenced immediately.

As Lelouch's dress shoes came to rest at the foot of the first step to the throne, the boy's statement would cause the Emperor's building anticipation to deflate sadly.

"Your Majesty, the Empress has been murdered."

How disappointing. He wasn't going to dare, after all. It still might be interesting, though. The boy just needed the proper... goading. After all, Charles had been in his situation once. He knew exactly what would set the boy off... Indifference.

"What of it?" Charles would rumble. The Emperor was trying so hard not to let Lelouch see his twinkling eyes.

Yet Lelouch, much to Charles's slightly annoyed surprise, did not take the bait.

"I merely wish to state, before the whole court, that whomever is responsible _will _be hunted down, and _when _they are found... they will pay dearly." Lelouch replied, turning his withering glance back to the right wing of courtiers, some of whom shied away from that gaze. Later, there would be stories swapped in the haze of smoke-filled gentlemen's parlours and the sickly-sweet stench of ladies' powder rooms about how the boy had had a malevolent leer on his face that was like looking into the eyes of the Devil himself.

"Yes," the Emperor replied. "I should hope that they will. But what, may I ask, does this have to do with _me_?" Charles lifted his chin, glancing downward at his son.

"The investigation, Your Majesty. It was blocked from proceeding by your order. I wish to know why." Lelouch replied. Calm. Calculating. Utterly infuriating. Why wasn't he frothing at the mouth already at Charles's indifference? Charles _knew _the boy suspected him. He never had thought Lelouch would be capable of facing him without anger, especially after what Charles had done to his sister... _Why _was he keeping his composure!?

"That is a matter of national security and is not for the ears of the court." Charles replied succinctly, his expression souring. This was the absolute worst reply he could give for the ears of the public, he knew. He wished he'd come up with a better reason when he'd ordered the investigation blocked, but that one was the only one he knew that was guaranteed to work...

"Then, may I hear it in private?" Lelouch inquired further.

Charles paused, his eyes briefly glancing upward, as if in thought.

"No."

Why the hell wasn't his son going _berserk _yet!? Who had coached him for this? Who was elucidating his strategy? Lelouch didn't sound like the melodramatic spoiled brat he knew as his eleventh-ranked son... He was starting to sound more like...

"Your Majesty, I should think it is my business to know."

"You should _think _more carefully, Lelouch vi Britannia, especially before you interrupt my schedule to ask me inane and pointless questions. Being her son does not entitle you to any special investigative privileges. On the contrary, it places you in a conflict of interest. You will wait for the official investigation's report like everyone else."

_Schneizel_. The Emperor briefly realized that there was one other person who could smooth-talk him into doing something he hadn't wished to do at first like this... and someone who had been somewhat close to the boy as well... That little brat had to have been put up to this by that blonde fop! If only Schneizel wasn't such a damned perfect heir to the throne, he'd have half a mind to...

"If that is your wish, Your Majesty. May I take my leave?"

_FUCK! _No one had made Charles curse inwardly for years, but he couldn't believe it. He'd only just realized that he hadn't just thwarted Lelouch's goals, he'd _fulfilled _them. His son's sole intent was to show to the court that the Emperor had something to hide, and to stoke the fires of gossip even further. Charles knew that many suspected him, but the fact that he was the one who had blocked the investigation and was having the official report censored was not public knowledge yet...

"... You truly wish to know the reason, do you, boy?" Charles could salvage this yet.

"No, Father, I have already heard enough. I hear and obey, Your Majesty." The words couldn't sound more loving and genuine, but Charles knew they were the bitterest sarcasm the prince could muster.

"So, not only do you come in here to waste my time with questions, your mind is not even made up about what you want from me. Lelouch, you are still a child, and unless you learn from what has happened to your mother and your sister, you will always remain one. I don't ever want to see your face again until you have done something that is worthy of my attention."

"I plan to, Your Majesty." _Oooh_. His son _was _good. Schneizel couldn't have prepared him for that... The perfect counter to his lecture. Neither denying his insult nor accepting it. Merely saying, in so many words, _just you wait._

"Get out." Charles grunted.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Lelouch rose and turned on his heel, practically walking on air out of the throne room. A verbal chess match with his father, and the stakes couldn't have been higher. And he'd come out on top. Or at least, as close to victory as a Prince could attain over an Emperor... without resorting to drastic measures...

Lelouch smirked to himself as the doors slammed shut behind him and he made his way out into the Upper Gardens of Pendragon Keep.

Drastic measures... there would be a time for those, but it wasn't today. Now, it was off to thank Schneizel for his brilliant adv-

HRGHUGLGKKK!

Everything went black, and the dark new world smelled faintly of lilacs and leather.

He awoke in a daze with a pounding headache what seemed like hours later, but from the fact that he was still standing in the same spot he'd left the world in and staring at the same view, it couldn't have been more than a few seconds.

"-put everyone in danger, our whole plan, our whole contract, I guess it didn't mean a damn thing to you, did it!? You just had to have your little satisfaction too!" A stern voice lectured him, and an iron grip tucked him into a headlock. "How dare you, Lelouch?! Without telling me? Do you have any idea of the damage this is going to do to our investigation? He could have us _killed!_" Cornelia hissed down at his ear, holding him tighter.

"He won't." Lelouch grunted, his face darkening until it was nearly purple. "gonna black out 'gain..."

"Again!? Oh, god, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Cornelia's grip slackened a bit, and precious oxygen once again made it to the boy's brain, his view of the world brightening and clarifying soon enough. "But I can't believe you did that! I can't believe you're so confident that things will just work out all right! Where in the hell did you learn to think like that?"

"I suppose it was from you, sister."

Cornelia released him at that statement, thinking about it for a moment, before bending down to come face-to-face with him and glaring harshly into his eyes.

"You can't possibly be talking about chess? Lelouch, that's a BOARD GAME! You're playing with your own sister's LIFE here!"

Lelouch's voice caught in his throat as he just realized the truth of this. When he'd considered the game "high stakes", he had only considered his own life in the equation, and briefly, he hung his head as he considered the possible consequences that might have befallen him if he'd misspoken... but it had gone perfectly...!

"... I... hadn't thought of it like that, Cornelia... but I _had _to see his face." Cornelia blinked. "Just once. To look into his eyes." Lelouch looked up into Cornelia's face, and a look of understanding seemed to slowly spread along her features. "... I think you're right." Lelouch added. "He's got something to hide... but I think Mother's death wasn't part of his plan, whatever it is. He didn't kill her."

"You seem pretty sure of that, Lelouch. Just from seeing his face...?" Cornelia's expression had changed from admonition into tentative curiosity.

Lelouch nodded, definitively. "It's almost the same look that was on yours, Cornelia."

"Almost...?" A raised violet eyebrow.

"Well, he was lying about _something_." Lelouch furrowed his brow and crossed his arms. "I just know it. But I'm not sure what."

Cornelia was silent for a long moment, before letting out a heavy sigh and standing up fully. "Lelouch, the doctors say Nunnally's condition is improving. They ran some tests this afternoon, they say the odds of her waking up within the next few days are close to 90 percent. I think you ought to stay with her and Euphie for at least the next few days."

Lelouch nodded, his eyes flicking toward the pavement of the garden path. "... maybe it's better if I'm not there... I don't think I could comfort her like Euphie can. I'd just... I... I don't think I can..." Lelouch's voice squeaked slightly, and the boy had to blink back a few tears, much to his eternal humiliation. "How am I supposed to... How am I supposed to tell my sister that she'll never see Mom again...?"

The words sliced coldly into Cornelia's heart, and a bittersweet- mostly bitter- memory resurfaced...

...

"... who's there?" Victoria li Britannia croaked, lifting a shaky, withered hand to shield her hypersensitive eyes from the harsh light of the hospital hallway. "Hygeia, is that you...? Have you brought my riding gloves? I feel dreadful today and I think a good ride over the grounds is just the thing for me... Have Normandy saddled for me, will you?"

Normandy, Victoria's favorite horse, had been dead for nearly six years. Hygeia had been one of Victoria's maids- and she hadn't been part of the staff for four. The young teenage girl standing in the door, eyes puffy and still trickling with tears, with stringy violet hair and a haunted, pained expression, carried a tray of the hospital's very finest porridge- the only food Victoria could reliably keep down anymore, and even that was a fifty-fifty chance- beside several containers of pills.

"Mother, it's..." she began with a heavy heart, knowing that it would end as it usually did, "it's me... Cornelia... your daughter. I've brought you your supper."

"Cornelia...?" Victoria leaned in, the papery fabric of her hospital cap- Cornelia had insisted on covering her mother's head once she'd gone bald after far too many mornings where Victoria threw a fit and injured herself upon seeing her reflection- crinkling as she moved. She raised a hairless eyebrow. "Nonsense, girl, you don't look anything like my daughter. How _dare _you? Get me Hygeia, you wench, and get out of my sight. I don't want any of your horrid cooking. I want to go riding."

"... I'm terribly sorry, my lady, it was an awful joke." Cornelia barely whimpered. Each time she served her mother a meal, she hoped and prayed that she would be recognized, just once... but the inoperable baseball-sized tumor had ravaged too much of her brain, stolen too much of her memory, her personality, her strength... The first time her mother hadn't recognized her, she'd prayed it was a fluke, and for a few days, it seemed that it was... but then it happened again, and again, and more often until the times she wasn't recognized were more often than the times she was. Five weeks ago had been the very last time Victoria had recognized her daughter, and after a few too many heartbreaking tirades from the duchess, Cornelia had finally begun to play the part of one of her mother's maids... She'd stopped bringing the three-year-old Euphemia along to visit two months ago, when Victoria had tried to strangle Cornelia, and she thanked goodness that Euphie hadn't been in the room at the time... "Elena from the kitchen forced me to do it. I'm new here, please don't fire me..."

Her mother, though stern, was usually merciful to this plea, and it was no different this time. "... Very well, girl, but I still insist you bring me my riding gloves, I will simply not sit inside on this beautiful day." She gestured toward the window.

The shades were drawn, and it was eight o'clock at night.

"My lady, I'm afraid Normandy has split his hoof and is being treated at the veterinarian's. I am told he will be fine with some rest and ointment, but you must eat." Cornelia replied, her voice hollow, practiced, and empty of emotion.

"You seem frightfully insistent, girl, keep in mind who you are speaking to. Very well, I shall take my supper and then I shall take tea in the solarium. Call Lady Marianne and see if she will join me for another of our afternoon chats, will you?"

Cornelia leaned in to place her mother's tray on her lap, and nodded. "Yes, my lady." She pulled up a stool and began to count out her mother's thrice-daily dosage of pills into the palm of her hand- knowing what was soon to come. Victoria reached for her spoon, her hand shaking wildly as she grasped it, only for it to clatter to the tray shortly afterward.

"Oh, dear. Clumsy me... Let's try this again..." The spoon would clatter to the tray a couple more times before Cornelia leaned in.

"May I assist you, my lady...?"

"Well, I certainly don't know what's wrong with me today, but yes, just this once, mind you. Go ahead."

Cornelia closed her eyes, thanking the heavens that her mother was being cooperative today, and that she hadn't made a mess of the porridge yet... She would re-cap the pill bottles and slip the seven pills her mother required at dinnertime into the porridge, stirring it a few times before beginning to, slowly and carefully, spoonfeed her mother, occasionally reaching to cradle her mother's head when she nearly missed Victoria's lips, and handing her the glass of water to take a sip with every spoonful.

Eventually, with the bowl completely empty, Victoria's shaking would lessen a bit as the medicine began to calm her and relax her madly misfiring nerves... For an hour or so after taking her pills, Victoria sometimes almost seemed like herself again... sometimes she'd even remember that she was sick, or that she was in a hospital, or what the year was, or what her doctor's name was... but anything else... _that_ was too much for Cornelia to hope for.

She would wipe her mother's lips with the napkin, and smile softly as her mother began to sink into a peaceful daze. The doctors assured Cornelia a week ago that at this dosage she would feel as little pain as possible while still remaining conscious, in the few weeks she had left to live.

"Well, thank you for that, dear. I still don't know..." Victoria yawned, "what's wrong with me today... but I'm feeling... much better after that..."

"Perhaps my lady would like to have a nap before her afternoon tea?" Cornelia inquired, expecting the usual response, but sometimes all she got was silence... Tonight was one of those times.

Victoria's eyes slowly fell shut, and eventually, after waiting a few moments, Cornelia would lean in and plant a gentle kiss on her mother's forehead, letting it linger a few moments before murmuring softly, "Goodnight, mother..."

As she leaned back, however, she'd see that Victoria had opened her eyes again...

"... Mother...?" Victoria inquired drowsily, confused.

"I... my lady, I..."

"... Cornelia...?" she croaked, blinking several times.

Cornelia's heart stopped.

"... Cornelia... what are you... doing here...?" Victoria reached up to weakly stroke a few strands of her daughter's hair from her forehead. "god... you're all grown up... I'm... really sick..."

"... yes, Mother, but don't worry... you're going to be just fine..." Cornelia eventually managed to stammer, leaning down to softly press her cheek to Victoria's. "I... I love you so much, Mother..."

"Like fish love the ocean, like birds love to sing..." Victoria slowly recited, the words to a lullaby she'd once sang to her daughters...

"Like..." Cornelia sniffled heavily, whimpering as the memory came flooding back to her.. "Like grass loves the ground..."

"Like bells love to ring..." For the first time in a long time, Victoria smiled. "I'll always love you, Neelie..." A name her mother had only used for Cornelia in private, and only when talking directly to her, not even allowing the staff to hear it- Feemie was Euphemia's... "I'm... dying, aren't I?"

Cornelia swallowed heavily. "... th... they think so...."

"Mmh... they're not far away, now, I can feel it. They're coming to take me with them." Victoria was still smiling as she said this, stroking the back of Cornelia's hair as her daughter began to cry openly.

"Don't go, Mother... we still need you... please don't go!" Cornelia begged, squeezing Victoria tightly.

"Oh, Neelie, Neelie...." Victoria crooned, stroking her daughter's hair sweetly. "Ssshhh... I'm not going anywhere. Don't you know... that it's only my body that's dying...? That part of me isn't important, you know... The important part of me... the part that loves you..." Victoria touched her daughter's forehead again, gingerly kissing her cheek, "that part will always be with you. And with Euphie, too... so don't cry... I'm not leaving. Just... changing. I'm staying... right here." Victoria reached down to touch her daughter's chest.

"I... I don't know if I can bear it..."

"You have to... you have to be strong for your sister, Neelie... You have to protect her. But you won't... be alone... Lady Marianne will help you. She is the strongest woman... I've ever met. And the best friend I've ever had. ... So whenever it gets too much for you... Ask her to help... and whenever you feel lonely... just look up at the stars at night, Neelie, and I'll be looking back down at you. Watching over you. For as long as you live.... till we meet again... I'll always be up there... and in your heart, too. Where is... Where's Euphie...? I'd like... I think I'd like to see her again, just one more time..." Victoria smiled gently, and Cornelia would quickly jump to her feet and dash for the door, flinging it open and turning back to look her mother in the eye.

"Please hold on just a little longer, Mother...! I'll get her here as soon as I can!" Cornelia begged, tears dripping from her jawline as she smiled openly for the first time in nearly as long as her mother.

Victoria would smile back, and nod sagely to her daughter. "Please... hurry."

...

When Cornelia returned, with Lady Marianne by her side and a sleeping Euphie- it was far past her bedtime- clinging to her back, her three-year-old sister's arms around her neck, she would enter the main doors of the hospital and come face-to-face with a wall of doctors with grave looks on their faces. Cornelia had been about to barge past them when Marianne gripped her shoulder and pinched gently. Cornelia whipped her head around to stare in fury at the woman, only to notice Marianne's ashen expression and a slight shake of her head...

"Your Highness... Your Majesty..." the lead doctor would bow slightly before closing her eyes. "... I believe it would be best... if you took the young Princess back home."

Cornelia swallowed heavily, and blinked back hot tears. "It can't be... She was just...!"

Marianne squeezed her shoulder again, blinking back a few tears of her own. "Cornelia, I'll take Euphie home... You go see her."

In disbelief, Cornelia would slowly allow Marianne to pick up Euphie from her back and cradle her sleeping sister in her arms, as the teenage princess went with the doctors upstairs to the oncology ward... Two more doctors flanked the Duchess's room, and their heads, again, bowed and their eyes closed when they spotted Victoria's daughter on her way, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. One would open the door for her.

"... Mother?" Cornelia softly inquired, still disbelieving as she entered the hospital room... A part of her mind had already noticed that the beep from the ECG machine was no longer present, nor was her mother's IV stand. But as she laid eyes on Victoria it seemed impossible to think she was dead... The Duchess looked healthier than Cornelia had ever seen her, her eyes closed as if she'd just settled in for a brief nap, a serene little smile on her lips.

"Mother... Wake up...!" Denial took a firm hold of Cornelia's psyche. She looked fine! It was impossible, Cornelia had just been talking to her! She'd gotten her memory back! There was no way her mother was dead! The doctors had to be mistaken. She reached forward to gently shake her mother's shoulder. "Wake up! ... Euphie's here, and Lady Marianne too... Everyone came to see you off...! We're all here, so you can't go yet...! Not until we..." Cornelia sniffled. "Not until I say goodbye!"

"... I'm so sorry, your Highness. We did everything we could. She went very peacefully. There was no pain..." One of the doctors murmured softly, standing behind her.

"Get the hell OUT OF HERE!" Cornelia turned around and snarled, lashing out with a backhand that just barely missed the doctor's glasses, and in moments the room's door had slammed firmly shut, and Cornelia slumped to the floor, clutching her mother's lifeless, yet still warm, hand, pulling it to her cheek and bursting into open sobs and wails. "I was too late... I wasn't quick enough... if I had just... if I had just been a little faster... Oh, Mother..."

Eventually, Cornelia's sobs would slowly wane and dry out... and she'd regain enough energy to stand... Looking over her mother's body one last time, she would kiss Victoria's hand, then her lips, nuzzling her mother's cheek before murmuring gently, "Goodbye..."

...

Cornelia barely got any sleep that night- as soon as she'd returned home, Lady Marianne was there to pull her into a nearly painful bear hug, and to hold her for several more hours as she cried her eyes out and clung tightly to the Empress, with Marianne stroking her hair and saying nothing... They'd fallen asleep together in the parlour, and when Cornelia had rubbed the sleep from her eyes that morning she thought for one delirious moment that it all must have been a dream, that her mother had never been sick and that, like many nightmares she'd awoken from in the past, she was about to realize with a flood of relief how silly the notion had been, but when Lady Marianne awoke mere moments afterward and her first action was to hug Cornelia tightly again, the undeniable memories came flooding back and a fresh wellspring of tears flooded her cheeks.

After another hour or so, Marianne had helped Cornelia dry her tears, and held her as they walked down the hall to Euphemia's bedroom... "I know it's hard..." Marianne had said softly, squeezing Cornelia's shoulder as she bent down slightly to come eye-to-eye with the teenager, "If you need help-"

"No..." Cornelia murmured with a sniffle. "it's all right... I can do it. I... I _have _to be the one to tell her."

"... I'll be right here waiting for you if you need me." Marianne kissed Cornelia's forehead.

Cornelia's trembling hand seized the doorknob, and turned.

...

"I know it's hard." Cornelia swallowed heavily and closed her eyes, before bending down and gently grasping Lelouch's shoulder. "If you need help..."

Lelouch was silent for a few long moments after that... but eventually he, too, would shake his head.

"No, it has to be me. I can't leave this burden on Euphie... I have to be the one to tell her... Besides... I'm sure... that I'll be the first one she wants to see when she wakes-" Lelouch started, before freezing at the realization of what he'd just said.

Cornelia shut her eyes tightly again and hugged him firmly, and Lelouch uttered a single sob before shaking his head and sniffling. "No... Cornelia... don't. I have to be strong for her." He pushed against his sister's arm, and Cornelia reluctantly permitted him to escape her grip, his hands repeatedly wiping at the corners of his eyes until he was certain no traces of tears remained. "If she can't walk, then I'll be her legs, and if she can't see, I'll be her eyes. She needs me."

"You aren't alone, Lelouch. We're here for her too... and for you."

"... Thank you, Cornelia. But this is one thing I have to do by myself." Lelouch nodded his thanks and turned his back, and Cornelia couldn't help but marvel at how much stronger the boy was at age ten than she'd been at fourteen, as she stood and watched him stride off, his crimson cape billowing... _majestically,_ Cornelia had to admit was the word, behind him.

The thought briefly occurred to her that _majesty_ was a quality only future Emperors were supposed to cultivate. And that, at that moment, the boy had more majesty in him than she'd ever seen Schneizel- or their father, for that matter- possess.


	8. Sacrifice

Euphemia had stayed by Nunnally's bedside every single moment she'd been permitted to do so, waiting in the lobby during each of her four surgeries over the past six days and seven nights, joined for several of those days by Lelouch- he'd said, a few times, that there was "something he had to do"- and rarely by Cornelia, though she'd dropped by just this afternoon to speak with the doctors. Euphie knew her sister was busy, as she'd said, trying to quickly find and punish the people who did this to Nunnally, but although Lelouch hadn't said a word about her yet, she could see that the boy had been angry at Cornelia- especially yesterday, for some reason, when he wouldn't even look at Euphie, nor hold her hand.

The duty of maintaining a constant vigil at Nunnally's bedside in case the girl woke from her coma fell to Euphemia, and she wouldn't have it any other way- doing anything other than staying by Nunnally's side until she regained consciousness just seemed impossible to her, and she wondered how Lelouch was doing it... but seeing his eyes yesterday, they'd seemed colder and harsher than she'd ever seen them. He'd frightened her, and as he'd left that morning, his voice had been icy and hollow when he said he was going to see Cornelia, and to take care of Nunnally for him. He'd been gone an awful long time... When he'd told her to take care of Nunnally... it had almost seemed like he'd meant he was going to... _do something drastic._ No, that was impossible. There was no way Lelouch could do something like that. And yet, until she'd seen the look on his face this morning she was convinced there was no way he could look like that, either...

Euphemia glanced out at the afternoon sun filtering through the blinds of the hospital, and bit her lip. Torn between two siblings- one of whom she knew for certain needed her here, and the other who might need her to stop him from doing something stupid. She couldn't leave Nunnally in an empty room, even for an hour, she just couldn't! But what if Lelouch was really going to...? Oh, what would Cornelia do in this situation?

"Nunnally..." Euphemia's hand clenched a bit tighter on Nunnally's as she pulled it to her cheek and gave it a little nuzzle. The constant beeping of the machines was harsh and mechanical, something that seemed totally at odds with Nunnally's nature- definitely something she would never want in her room- but they also gave Euphemia the assurance that, so long as they continued, Nunnally was alive, and that she would soon wake up. "Come on... Wake up, Nana..." She sniffled a bit, recalling how they used to sleep in together on lazy mornings- and sometimes even afternoons. Lady Marianne would usually be the one to wake them, though occasionally Lelouch would do so in the gentlest voice imaginable, and he'd sometimes start with a little rhyme he'd made up for his sister...

"Sun's up, buttercup..." Euphemia began to recite a bit weakly. "so don't you keep on snoring... The whole world's out there waiting for you..."

The door creaked, and a single violet eye peered into the crack.

"Don't be lazy, daisy... rub your eyes and greet the morning..."

Euphemia let out a little squeak as a pair of gentle hands touched her shoulders, and Lelouch's voice replied, "The sky needs your smile to make it blue..."

Quickly, she'd place her hands atop his and blush, looking up at him. "Are you... Are you all right? This morning, you-"

"I'm sorry about this morning, Euphie. I was mistaken about something. Seeing Cornelia helped me a lot." His fingers began to rub gently up and down her shoulders, and she would slump back into the folding chair and close her eyes. "Everything's all right, now. I'm not leaving this room until Nunnally wakes up."

"Good, because she's going to soon... I can feel it." One of her hands reached out to rest atop Nunnally's again, squeezing gently, as if to make sure she was still really there...

Lelouch smiled, then cleared his throat. "Um... Euphie... I'm going to need a minute alone with her after she wakes up. ... I need to be the one to tell her about... mom."

Euphemia paused, then glanced downward between her shoes. "... I understand, Lelouch."

That night, right when Lelouch was on the verge of falling asleep and Euphie had already been snoring for quite some time, Nunnally moved her arm. Over the course of the next few hours, despite their attempts to wake her gently, Nunnally remained fast asleep, but began to occasionally move and twitch more often, and even to make slight noises in her throat, but it wasn't until nearly three o'clock in the morning that her hand went up to her face and felt the bandages wrapped tightly around her eyes... Lelouch, his bloodshot, puffy eyes seeing only the blur of another motion, was at first told by his sleep-deprived brain that it was another false alarm, but forced himself to stand and shake his head vigorously as Nunnally's hand began to move about the hospital bed, feeling the wires attached to her body, the IV attached to her arm, her hips...

Lelouch would quickly take that hand in his own, and Nunnally gasped a moment in fright, before straining with the effort to sit up- an effort that failed- and placing her other hand atop his, just as he pulled them both up to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

"Good morning, Nunnally."

"Lelouch..." Nunnally croaked, her throat raw and dry. "I'm so happy..."

Lelouch's expression shifted, to one of confusion... "You're happy?"

"I dreamed that you were dead. I could hear your voice, and Euphie's, in this horrible darkness... I thought I was dead and that you were... It's still dark, though..."

"Well... you see, Nunnally..." Lelouch swallowed a lump in his throat.

...

"Well, you see, Euphemia... Mother had to go to rest... She went somewhere we can't see her again for a long time." Cornelia held Euphie gently as her three-year-old sister rested across her lap, her cheek resting on Cornelia's knee.

"Mama's resting?"

"Yes. She's not hurting or sick anymore, Euphie." Cornelia reached in to stroke her sister's hair.

"She's better?"

"... She's not in this world anymore, Euphie. She's gone."

"Where'd she go?" Euphemia still didn't seem upset in the least.

"Well, that's the thing, Euphemia, I don't know. Nobody knows where you go when your body stops working, but I do know that she's not sick anymore where she is. And that we'll go to see her someday... but not for a long time, not until we're very old and we've had very long and happy lives of our own."

"Does Mama still love us?"

"Yes, of course she does. She'll always love us no matter where she is."

"So why won't she come back?" Euphemia tilted her head.

"... She can't, Euphie. She can't come back here, to our home, ever again. Her body isn't alive anymore, so she had to go somewhere else. To where everybody goes when their body dies."

"Oh... so she went to heaven. Rosa told me about heaven!"

Cornelia closed her eyes, partly glad that one of the maids had told Euphemia something that seemed to give her comfort at the notion... but also partly annoyed that Rosa had been teaching Euphemia religion, something she knew she'd have to help Euphie abandon someday when she got older, such things not being appropriate for royalty... Still, childish notions such as those the commoners cherished could be forgiven for at least a few more years.

"Well, if you want to call it that."

"I wonder if she misses us."

"She told me that she'd always be watching over us... so no... I don't think she misses us, because she hasn't really left us, you see?" Cornelia would stroke the palm of Euphie's hand with a finger.

"Oh... Hm... So is Lady Marianne going to be our new mama?"

Cornelia bit her lip and glanced away. "Nobody can ever replace mother, but she asked Lady Marianne to help take care of us when she couldn't... So she and Lelouch will be living with us for a while."

"Oh.... Okay..." Euphemia yawned, ending with a bit of a squeak.

Cornelia was simultaneously glad and somewhat unsettled at the way Euphie was taking the news, but then again, she was very young... a bit too young to truly understand the meaning of what had happened...

...

"Mother's dead." Lelouch glanced at the floor, the grieving boy unable to put it any less bluntly than that, swallowing hard.

Nunnally was silent for a moment, before eventually letting out a great sigh and pulling Lelouch's hand to her cheek, nuzzling it. "I know. I... I saw."

"Then you saw who...!" Lelouch started with a gasp, but stopped himself.

_This is the last thing she needs right now._

"... I'm sorry. That's all I remember, is Mother being hurt and falling onto me and then everything went black... forever. I didn't see anything else. Or anybody. I'm sorry."

"Nunnally, you have no reason to be sorry to anyone. I'm the one who should apologize, I-... I should have..." Lelouch choked up briefly, before closing his fingers tightly on Nunnally's. "It should have been me. I should have been there, instead. Not you."

"You're selfish, Lelouch. Then I'd be the one who's sad right now, not you." Nunnally teased, giving a little smile.

"What are you saying... You're not sad that you're...?" Lelouch bore a bewildered expression.

"Well, of course I'll miss being able to walk, and see things. But I'd be so much sadder if you'd been hurt. You're OK, and you're here by my side, and that's all I ever needed, Lelouch. You'll always protect me, right?"

"Of course, Nunnally, I swear it."

...

"Cornelia, you seem to have forgotten just what kind of person Lelouch is." Schneizel put his fingertips together, steepling his hands as his elbows rested upon his knees, an unusual posture for the Second Prince, but one that showed that even he had been somewhat put to shame by Cornelia's scathing rebuke. "He would have gone to confront Father with or without my help. I neither encouraged nor discouraged him, but rather, gave him advice on how to get what he wanted while minimizing risk and saving face. This is the art of politics, an art I should say he needs to learn."

"Schneizel, he's learned _quite _enough about politics already! They're the reason his sister's blind and his mother's..." Cornelia stammered, before blinking back a few tears.

"What happened was a tragedy, Cornelia. You are grieving in your own way. Lelouch is grieving in his. It just so happens that for that boy, he deals with his grief through action. That sort of boy- that sort of man- will make a great leader someday. Provided he does not make any reckless, foolish mistakes before then." Schneizel sighed and stood, reaching down to offer his hand to Cornelia, who reluctantly took it.

"We must do all that we can to ensure that does not happen. When I found the Empress's body atop Nunnally- shielding her- I knew immediately what she had done. She had sacrificed her life to protect her daughter. If we allow any harm to come to young Lelouch or to Nunnally, her sacrifice- her dying wish- was for nothing."

...

"_Nothing_. She died for nothing." Charles zi Britannia growled as he stared into the mirror, both his hands planted firmly upon the desk below it. "If I carry on with our plan, I play directly into my brother's hands. But if I abandon it... She is lost, and so is our dream. Please, C.C." Charles turned to face the witch, standing cross-legged in the corner of his study. "Allow me to speak with her. I know that you possess the ability to communicate with those who dwell in that world... the World of C."

"Charles, I am afraid I did not come here to express my sympathies." C.C. responded, her deadpan gaze traveling up to the Emperor. "I am leaving this place. V.V. has shown me quite clearly that he has no intention of giving me what I want. And you, yourself, have just proven to me that you only intend to use me, too. You condemn your brother for his lie, but you are every bit the liar that he is."

"You are leaving, then." Charles narrowed his eyes, a rough chuckle rising in his lungs. "And where is it that you will go? Where do you think, in this wide world, you will ever find the power to kill an immortal if not at the end of our research?"

"Perhaps I've decided I'm not quite ready to die yet, Charles. It is none of your business."

"Then _you _are the one breaking our contract, not me, C.C." Charles growled.

"I never had a contract with you, Charles. It was always with Marianne. And now she is dead. My contract with her is now void."

"Your contract with her passes to me. She was my wife- what was mine was hers, and what was hers is now mine. That includes you." Charles began to move forward, and C.C., for the first time in their discussion, tinged her face with a slight emotion- a brief quaver of fear tickled the pit of her stomach, as she began to back away.

"I belong to no one, Charles." C.C. protested.

"You _will_ fulfill your agreement- with her, and with me." Charles's hand snatched outward, blindingly fast, and closed firmly around C.C.'s neck. "And then, eventually, you shall have your wish." C.C.'s brief squeak was cut off as he began to squeeze, with all the strength he had in his colossal right arm, crushing her windpipe and bursting several veins. "You... shall.... die." The last word rang hollowly in C.C.'s ears as the world faded to white.


	9. Beloved

"We lay to rest not the body of a woman but the body of a legend. To the earth we now commit the remains of Her Majesty the 11th Empress of the Holy Empire of Britannia, Marianne vi Britannia." Cornelia spoke calmly and squarely to the small crowd assembled around the grave. She was not standing on anything, nor, naturally, did she read from any paper- these words were spoken directly from her heart. Her face was dry of tears, and only the Emperor glared harshly off into the distance, his gaze traveling directly over the head of Horace Ashford, who rested a hand upon his daughter's shoulder. Milly sniffled slightly as she clutched a limp bouquet of roses. The heat had wilted most of the flowers and yellowed the grass- it was a blistering hot summer day, with flecks of pollen thick as snowfall drifting through the Ivory Gardens, the resting place of all the Empire's sovereigns of the past millennium. As Cornelia paused, inhaling deeply and digging her fingernails into her palm to avoid showing her tears, she would realize that this was Marianne's very favorite sort of day.

"Beloved mother..." Cornelia glanced to Lelouch, looking back at her with his chin raised and a stoic expression upon his face, showing neither grief nor anger, "aunt," her gaze traveled next to Lelouch, where Clovis stood with a hand on Lelouch's shoulder and a few glistening tears in his eyes. Next to him, Schneizel had his chin tucked to his chest and his eyes closed, his hands clasped reverently behind his back, "wife," to the Emperor, who showed no change in his determination not to look at Cornelia, the casket six feet deep in the earth at his feet, or any of his sons beside him, "and friend..." Cornelia briefly touched a gloved hand, sticky with perspiration, to her own chest, before resting both of her hands at her sides and clenching them into fists in a modified position of military attention, "But above all, an eternally loyal servant of the Empire." It was only then that Charles's face would seem to soften, his gaze briefly flicking downward to the earth, knowing his wife's body was not there, but looking upon the Sovereign's Symbol cresting 'her' casket anyway.

"She served the glory and majesty of the Empire... and she made Britannia more glorious and more majestic through her service. She is an example to us all, cruelly taken from us long before her time. She will never, _ever _be forgotten." Cornelia knelt down to the side of the grave, extending a hand over the edge and opening it. A few eyes followed the small velvet bag that plummeted from her hand- had she been clutching that object for the entire service?- but none could discern its contents, and as Cornelia dropped it, she would speak once more. "Rest in peace, your Majesty." She rose slowly, and grasped the slender, ceremonial black shovel at the head of the grave, taking a knee once more at the Emperor's side, and turning it, like a sword, to offer the handle to him.

Charles glanced down at it, and let his gaze linger a moment before snatching it from Cornelia's grasp roughly, and, taking a wide stance, piercing the mound of earth at the graveside as if he were trying to stab it to death. It was only a moment afterward that he swung the shovel outward, throwing a heaping shovelful of earth into the grave, a noisy shower of gravel and rocks raining over the casket's exterior that made most of those present- especially Clovis and Milly- jump at the jarring, harsh sound. Dirt continued to pour down the great gouge in the side of the pile, only settling after several more handfuls of dirt and rocks had fallen down into the grave. The Emperor then stood silently a moment, turning his gaze over all of those present, as if showing his contempt for the entire ceremony, but most of all for those who were shocked at his roughness and inelegance at such a farce. He would then hand the shovel blade-first to Lelouch, casting his gaze down at the boy.

"Straighten your back, boy. This is no cause for mourning. She did the duty that is expected of all of us."

Lelouch was certain his back had already been straight, but he seized the shovel by the edge and shoulder of the blade, showing no hesitation to ruin his cuffs and soil his hands, and the Emperor's eyes all but lost their harshness for a moment- Lelouch was certain he'd imagined that part- before he lifted his chin and strode on past the boy, leaving early, as was to be expected of the Emperor- he'd already done his part.

The prince did not hesitate to scoop out another shovelful of dirt, but paused as he held it and gazed down at his mother's casket. For a moment, the thought that it was his father that had put that clod of dirt and scattering of rocks on top of her so callously nearly made him want to vomit. Irrationality clouded his mind, and he forced himself to close his eyes and merely tilt the shovel sideways, allowing his clump of soil to fall limply into the chasm, and very nearly allowing the shovel to fall in after it if it hadn't been for Cornelia kneeling down to steady his trembling arm.

His eyes opened once more and he would thrust the shovel in Clovis's direction. The Third Prince would be somewhat shocked to observe that Lelouch's expression was nearly identical to that of his father mere moments ago, and he was even handing him the shovel by its blade, as well, before Cornelia would take it by the center of the shaft and remove it from Lelouch's grasp, turning it about and handing it over in such a manner as to give the appearance that she was merely assisting him, instead of correcting him.

Clovis, then Schneizel, did their part with solemnity and dignity, and Cornelia had been about to do the same, trying to force herself not to look down, but when she caught a glimpse of that perfect royal blue color and that symbol, stained and buried under filthy tendrils of earth, Cornelia felt a sense of utter revulsion rising in her throat. To throw dirt on her beloved Lady Marianne...? On that symbol that represented everything she was? It was impossible. She couldn't do it.

As she stood there, gazing downward with a look like a deer in the headlights, Lelouch would notice, and move closer, murmuring quietly so that only she, and perhaps Schneizel who had moved a bit closer, perhaps to do the same thing, could hear.

"That's not my mother anymore, Cornelia. That's just a box."

_Just a box._ And just a body, inside of it. It wasn't Lady Marianne anymore.

_Not the important part of her, anyway_, Cornelia reminded herself, working to swallow a sniffle as she threw her clump of dirt down into the hole, and made her way around the edge to hand the shovel to Lord Ashford, the man's moustache visibly drooping in sorrow as he bowed his head to the princess and moved to do the same. Milly would set her bouquet by Marianne's gravestone before troweling in a small amount, and then afterward the Imperial Undertakers, their black and crimson-striped uniforms crisp and impeccable, their motions precise and rehearsed, would step in to take the places of the mourners and begin the solemn task of filling in the rest of their Empress's grave.

...

The elderly lord, expectedly dignified in appearance, would hold up two impeccably gloved hands to quiet the reporters flocking the podium, the gavel-and-warhammer symbol of the Imperial Ministry of Justice embroidered into the navy-blue flag hanging behind him.

Reaching to his pocket to dab at his forehead with a handkerchief, he would then clear his throat.

Three hundred miles distant, Lelouch sat on a stool while Cornelia rested her chin in her hands, their siblings asleep down the hall and the television's volume turned down quite low. Although the young prince looked hopeful, there was only weariness and pessimism in Cornelia's expression. She knew what was coming.

"After an exhaustive investigation of all possible leads, the Ministry of Justice has concluded that the assassination of our beloved Empress was the sole act of the terrorist group..."

Lelouch slammed a fist on the counter, while Cornelia hung her head.

"...calling themselves the Anatolian Liberation Army, acting in retaliation for what they perceived to be the late Empress's part in the conflict..."

The television blackened and fell silent, Cornelia hurling the remote control with a whump into the cushions beside her.

"Let's get to bed, Lelouch. We knew this was going to happen."

Lelouch continued to scowl, turning his gaze slowly over to his sister and nodding lightly.

"I just need a glass of water first."

Cornelia returned his nod and closed her eyes, standing and stretching out a moment, trying to calm those ugly feelings that had just threatened to boil over inside of her. She would nearly disappear from Lelouch's sight as the boy moved to fill a glass from the filter inside the door of the refrigerator, when she spoke, standing there in the hallway.

"We _will_ get them, Lelouch. They'll pay. I s-"

"_Don't_ swear it, Cornelia." Lelouch snapped. He was silent for another moment, eventually softening his tone. "You don't need to. I believe you."

"I'll see you in the morning, Lelouch."

"Goodnight, Cornelia." He began to tilt the glass, taking a few gulps of water that tasted bitterly under his tongue, despite the fact that he knew it didn't _really_ taste like anything at all.

A glint on the counter caught his eye.

...

Cornelia pressed her fingertips firmly to her temples as she leaned against the doorway of Euphemia's bedroom, looking in on her sleeping sister, permitting herself to smile slightly as she noticed the dark puddle of drool on the otherwise atrociously bright pastel-pink pillow on which her cheek rested. Shaking her head slightly, she would move into the room and bend over the bed, grasping a handkerchief from the cabinet and taking a gentle hold of Euphie's cheek, lifting it enough to dab away some of the mess and guide her sister slowly onto her back.

_Thunk-whirrr._ What in the hell was...?

Cornelia sucked in a half-gasp.

That was the garage door!

...

Ditching her slippers on the steps, Cornelia bounded through the dew-slick grass barefoot, intent on throwing herself across the driveway into Lelouch's path, but she skidded and fell halfway there- by the time she picked herself up, the crimson taillights of her car were out the gates and headed far into the distance.

It only took her a moment- after considering that calling for the guards would reveal that she herself was the one who'd taught him to drive and, in effect, given him the keys through her own negligence and stupidity- to throw away all consideration of that and remember that this was her brother's safety she was balancing these considerations against.

Hobbling back into the house on a twisted ankle, hissing with every other step, Cornelia reached for the emergency buzzer and slammed a palm onto it.

...

"I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, Commander, but-" the guard began, as he grasped the wheel tightly with both gloves.

"I am not your commander anymore, Jeremiah. Please refrain from calling me that." Cornelia glanced at herself in the passenger-side mirror and noted several grass stains on her cheek. Attempting to wipe them away with her sleeve merely resulted in an ugly smudge. Oh, well. "I don't know where he thinks he's going, but we need to find him before he gets hurt."

"How well _would_ you say you taught His Highness to drive, Lady Cornelia? If that's... That is, if that's not-"

"His skill isn't the problem. He's still too short to reach the damn pedals. I _told_ him that, I _forbid_ him from... Ugh, I'm so _stupid!_" Cornelia put her face in her palm, and eventually smoothed her hair back and returned to scanning the road, leaning forward on the dash.

"... As I was trying to say before, Lady Cornelia, I don't blame the boy after the Lord Marshall's press conference tonight. Everyone knows that it's-"

"Can you _please_ focus on the task at hand, Jeremiah?" Cornelia snapped, continually checking in the car's blind spots as well- constantly terrified that she'd see ambulance or fire truck sirens in any direction... "He didn't take his phone, either."

"I don't expect that he would... Just where might he be-"

"LOOK OUT!"

Tires squealed, and the bulk of Jeremiah's staff-car swerved sideways, narrowly missing the rear bumper of Cornelia's car, its passenger side wholly crumpled against the divider that separated the highway off-ramp from the highway itself. At this time of night, there were only a few cars on this road that was accessible only to the nobility, one of which whizzed by without any care for the apparent two-car pileup that was now nearly blocking the exit to the Aries complex.

Both doors of the staff-car flung open simultaneously, and Cornelia nearly leapt upon the cabin of her wrecked vehicle, her eyes wide and bloodshot with panic as she tore through the airbag and frantically called for her brother. "Lelouch!? Lelouch, are you- He's not in here, thank God..." Cornelia gasped as she found that the driver's seat- as well as the passenger seat and the rear- were fortunately empty.

Jeremiah, meanwhile, had stood back at first, and as Cornelia looked to him, he pointed over toward the sidewalk, where a visibly shaken but otherwise unharmed Lelouch sat staring at his shoes and hugging his knees.

"Lelouch! Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?!" Cornelia rushed forward, crouching down to inspect her brother, but only received a grim shake of his head to her last question.

"N-... No... I'm not... but..."

"But what?" Cornelia briefly took his hand into hers, turning it over and inspecting him for injuries. "Jeremiah, call an ambulance." The guardsman was already ahead of her, holding the phone next to his ear as he spoke with the local operators.

"I'm not injured, Cornelia. ... but your car..."

"It's just a damn car, Lelouch, I can get another one." Cornelia huffed, as she stood, satisfied that Lelouch was all right.

"but aren't you angry...?"

Cornelia put a hand to her forehead, inspecting the totaled remains of Lady Marianne's gift to her on her seventeenth birthday, and shook her head. "I am, yes, but it can wait. I'm glad you crashed it before you got out on the freeway, at least. This was almost so much worse."

Once again, Lelouch knew that apologizing now was pointless, so he weakly stood, still looking firmly at the ground.

"Jeremiah, ask them to hold the ambulance, please. We just need a tow truck." Cornelia sighed and ran her hand wistfully over the unblemished hood of half of the car, well-aware that no matter how nice the left side still looked, the car was as good as scrap now... Eventually, however, she'd turn back to face Lelouch, and brush her knuckles against his cheek.

"Take Lelouch back home before anyone finds out about this. I'll stay to see her off." Cornelia ordered the guard, who would nod and begin to salute out of instinct before stifling it and holding the door of his staff-car open for the young prince. Lelouch glanced back at Cornelia one last time before marching shamefully into the passenger seat.

As the staff-car sped off, Cornelia rested an elbow on the hood of her car and sighed mournfully. "Guess this is the end of the road for you, girl..."

...

"May I ask where you were going, your Highness?" Jeremiah flicked his gaze to the shaken and humiliated prince sitting in the passenger seat.

"I don't know. Jeremiah, was it? I just needed to get out of that place. It feels... It feels _wrong_ without her." Lelouch stammered, finally resting his elbows on his knees and his forehead against his palms.

Jeremiah was silent a long moment, but eventually, as he was slowing to make a turn back onto the main winding road to the gates of the villa, he spoke.

"It's not just this villa that feels wrong without her, Lord Lelouch. All decent and honorable Britannians mourn her loss. ... I did not know your mother, Lelouch, she merely said my name a few times- ... I do believe she complimented my haircut once. But even so, she was someone whom I will sorely miss. No matter where you go, you will never find the peace you seek until time passes and your sorrow heals. And there are people here in this home that need you now more than ever. ... And I am not just talking about Lady Nunnally." Jeremiah gave a brief nod back over his shoulder, and as Lelouch observed, it took him a moment to comprehend the meaning of the gesture.

"Cornelia? ... But she'll hate me now. I crashed her car. I disobeyed her. ... worst of all I made her worry like that...." Lelouch swallowed, remembering the sheer panic in Cornelia's eyes- a look he'd never seen before, though he might have caught it if he'd been looking hard enough _that day_...

It was a look he'd eagerly sought in their chess matches, but he never thought he'd see it like this... or that he'd feel so badly when he did.

"She worried like that precisely because she does not hate you, Lelouch, because she _cannot _hate you. ... She'll be upset, yes. I would, too. That was a very nice automobile, and it was your mother's gift to her, three years ago..." Jeremiah glanced wistfully over at Lelouch as the staff-car rolled to a halt and fell silent, save for the faint whine of turning flywheels, at the circular driveway that led to the villa's front door.

"Mother gave that to her? ... God, she _should _hate me. I'd hate me." Lelouch pulled at his hair, his face screwing up in overwhelming shame at what he'd done.

"But Lady Cornelia was right. In the end, no matter how precious it seems, it's just an object. What's truly precious are the people who are still alive- and the memories we cherish of those who are gone. It seems impossible now, I understand, but you should know that your mother would want you to remember the happy times you had together as a family- not to focus on her death, but on her life. It is true that you are the man of the house, Lord Lelouch, but... I don't think Lady Marianne would want you to become a man any sooner than you have to." Jeremiah even found himself with a wry smile on his face as he reached over to clap the prince firmly upon his shoulder.

"So I'm not in trouble, then...?" Lelouch inquired, mystified.

This forced Jeremiah to let out a breathy, astonished chortle. "I wouldn't go that far, your Highness. But that's up to Lady Cornelia to decide, and I'm sure she will want a good night's rest beforehand. So your sentencing will have to wait until the morning. In the meantime, she instructed me that you are to go _directly _to bed. And whether or not she has resigned her post, she will always remain my Commander, and I will obey her orders _to the letter_. So, respectfully, your Highness..." Jeremiah slipped out of the driver's seat, moved around to open Lelouch's door, then slammed it shut behind him and grasped the prince by the collar of his nightshirt.

_"March."_


	10. An Education

"You're _kidding _me!" Euphemia gasped as she put a hand up to her mouth, the expression on her face not merely shock but also considerable embarrassment as well. "_You _were the one who wrecked her car? Oh, god, Lelouch, and I've been making fun of Cornelia for three years now and she hasn't said a word..."

Lelouch, looking just as mortified, would glance off to the side. "Well, she didn't want me to get in trouble, I guess..."

"You didn't get in trouble for that?" Euphemia inquired, tilting her head.

"... Well, uh, if you'll remember, for most of the next few months I wasn't available in the afternoons..."

"... you weren't going to Clovis's?" Euphemia leaned in, a broad grin showing on her face as if she was being let in on some conspiracy.

"Sometimes I was, but, ah, it wasn't to play chess. Commander Gottwald put a _disguise_ on me and had me do some different chore every week...! Like a servant boy! Cornelia apparently thought it would be _educational_." Lelouch grumbled, crossing his arms.

"Ah, no wonder you started going to bed so early! You must have been exhausted every night." Euphemia leaned over to pull Lelouch's head to her shoulder and ruffle his hair, prompting a protesting cry from the teenager.

"Hey! Euphie, you can't lean over like that in here, you're gonna tip the-" And all too quickly, the boat's balance shifted, and with scarcely a "Whoa!" the two of them were upside-down and underwater, in the shallow lake at the center of one of the villa's elaborately landscaped gardens.

As Lelouch's shoes found the sandy bottom and his head broke the surface of the water, he would wipe the lake water from his eyelids and bat aside a lily pad, opening his eyes to come face-to-face with a soaked, and still grinning, Euphemia, though a slight blush tinged her cheeks. "Sorry, Lelouch, I guess we've both grown a bit..."

With nearly anyone else, Lelouch would have been raging at their negligence despite his warning, but with Euphemia, any notion of being angry with her even for something that was clearly her fault was inconceivable- it fled from his mind before a spark of anger even appeared. "You really are hopeless, Euphie... You know Cornelia's going to be furious with us for ruining these clothes."

"Well then, maybe this time I can join you for your punishment!" Euphie replied, sticking her tongue out and reaching over with an arm, the filmy fabric of her dress sending cascades of water down onto Lelouch's shoulder as she combed back some soaked raven locks from his face. "Won't that be romantic, Lelouch...?"

"Romantic, nothing..." Lelouch grumbled, glancing down and off to the side, though he wasn't entirely dismissing the notion... "You try breaking down rotten fences and cleaning out stables and milking cows for a few weeks and you won't think so afterward..." He couldn't help but wonder why his gaze seemed to keep flicking back toward the way Euphemia's soaked dress clung to the slight swell of her chest... Was this what he'd read about...? What Cornelia had warned him about...? How his feelings toward girls would start to change...?

"Well, whatever's going to happen, it'll be worse if we don't get a bath and get changed quickly, so c'mon..." Euphie reached under the water to close a hand around Lelouch's wrist, leading the bewildered boy up out of the lake and striding, soaked, up to the patio... Once upon the rocky surface, she would bunch as much of her dress up into her arms as she could grab and begin to wring it out, while Lelouch watched and glanced down at his own clothing, realizing that his wasn't nearly loose enough for him to wring out without removing it, and he certainly wasn't about to do that in front of-

oh god.

"What's that look on your face for, Lelouch? You act like you've never seen me in my underwear before." Euphemia chided, placing her hands on her hips.

"G... Guh... B... Uh... E-... Euphie, I..." His face crimson, his mind blank, his vision flooded with stars, his eyes as wide as dinner plates for a moment before he flung an arm up over them. "You shouldn't be... outside like that...!"

"Well, I'm waiting for you, so hurry up! At _least_ hang your shirt up to dry!" Euphemia reached over to fiddle with his buttons. "Here, I'll help you."

This prompted an explosive movement from Lelouch's arms to simultaneously stop Euphemia's hands and cover himself, but after a moment of meeting her annoyed stare with a shocked one of his own, the young man would sputter, "U-uhm, I can do it myself, okay!?"

"Fine! Well, let me go get my towel and my hairbrushes..." Euphemia flicked her sopping wet hair saucily over one shoulder as she strode off into the house, Lelouch's eyes glued to the sight until he remembered that his lungs required another breath, and he sucked it in like a fish out of water.

As his bare feet padded carefully on the tile floor, trying not to slip, Lelouch would eventually move into one of Aries villa's more simple but elegantly designed bathrooms, with a distinctly white motif, scarcely a shade of any other color to be seen anywhere within. Shutting the door behind him, he eventually calmed his thudding heart and rapid breaths, and felt the tingle on his cheeks begin to fade as the hot water poured into the tub. Once his wet clothing was hanging on the towel rack, he sunk down to his nose in the nearly still water of the tub, blowing a few bubbles as he rolled his eyes.

_What the hell was that all about...?_

He'd have just a moment of peace to meditate on that thought before the bathroom door burst open, and Euphemia, her body tightly wrapped in an electric pink bath towel that seemed far too small for the budding curves it contained, would cheerfully swing her hip to throw it shut, then let out a shrill squeak as she was splashed with a torrent of water. "Lelouch, what are you _doing_?!"

"Wh-" The teenage prince's blush had returned in full force, and his hands had shot down between his thighs as he once again stared at Euphemia, who stared back at him with an indignant frown. "What am _I _doing!? What are _you _doing? This is - this isn't - _You need to take a bath somewhere else!_"

"What's with this all of a sudden? Too good to share a bath with dumb ol' Euphie, now?" the girl frowned, crossing her arms beneath her chest in just such a manner to make Lelouch's blush deepen even further, crossing the line from cherry to scarlet.

"No, it's just... we're... Uhm..."

"Besides, we've gotta get clean _quick, _and you _know _I can't wash my hair very good by myself." Indeed, Euphemia's hair was almost down to her knees now, and when it was wet it weighed nearly half as much as she did...! "I usually need Cornelia to help me but she's not here, and we'd better get done before she gets back...! So c'mon, help me out...?" Euphemia pleaded, placing both hands on the edge of the tub and looking down at Lelouch with those irresistible puppy-dog eyes, and irresistible...

_No! Why are you looking down there!?_

"Fine, fine, hurry up!" Lelouch relented, if only to be spared that look, quickly swishing his head to stare intently at the space between the tiles on the wall, and within moments the water level rose and an infinitely pleasant, familiar humming filled the air as Euphie scrubbed along her arms. .

...

"Gah! What are you doing!?" Lelouch jumped, barely avoiding splashing Euphemia, who responded as he turned to look at her with a dismissive roll of her eyes, moving that sponge back and forth over Lelouch's shoulder blades.

"You missed a spot on your back, silly!" She leaned in further, pulling his ear aside and frowning. "Oh, and behind your ears, too! Gosh, Lelouch, you better not be turning into a slob!"

"Well I'm a little bit _distracted_..." Lelouch murmured, turning away as his blush returned and he fiddled with his fingers.

"Are you saying I'm weird-looking?" Euphemia scowled. "Is that why you keep sneaking looks at me like that?"

"N-No! That's not w-" Lelouch gulped. "You're _very _pretty, Euphemia, it's... um, it's hard for me to focus on what I'm-"

"Aw, you're so sweet, Lelouch." She wrapped his arms around him from behind and _squeezed_.

Okay, now _that _was just way too much...

"What's with this? You're acting all weird like that just from a _hug_? I hug you all the time and you never look like _that._" Euphemia pulled on his cheeks, stretching them wide to either side, but Lelouch was barely able to speak through it.

"I t-thawt we were duppowsed doo be in a huwwy... I think I just hewd the dooww..."

"Oh, right!" Euphemia quickly shifted in the bathtub, water sloshing as she moved.

"Quick, you wash my leg, I'll wash yours...!"

Lelouch fainted.

"Ahh! Lelouch! Lelouch, wake up! _Lelouch... Somebody help!_"

The door opened.

"Euphemia?! Is everything **what the hell**." Cornelia's expression changed with near light-speed from panic to hollow disbelief.

"Um... is something wrong, Cornelia...?" Euphemia tilted her head.

...

Lelouch's next few minutes would fly by in a daze, where he wasn't entirely sure if he'd been conscious or not, certainly after what he'd seen a moment ago... He did his best to blank the image from his mind when he finally came to his senses, realized that he was holding an icepack to his head, and that Cornelia was sitting across from his bed on a stool, her legs crossed, a small box on her lap, and the faintest hint of a blush on her face.

Sitting there and staring at him for a long while, the longer she stared, the redder her cheeks became, until finally she pulled a fist to her lips and cleared her throat.... and just kept sitting in silence, her face getting even redder now.

"Is... Um, is everything all right, Cornelia....?" Lelouch finally croaked. "Am I in trouble...?"

"Oh! Uh... No." Cornelia stammered, showing panic on her face yet again, and once again, Lelouch was certain that he did not like seeing Cornelia this way. She began talking a mile a minute, barely leaving pause for breath... "No, Lelouch, you're not in trouble, please understand that this is every bit as awkward for me as it is for you, I just... um... I... Uh... Well, you're getting older now, and, well, Euphemia's getting older, too, and, well, what happened today was... mostly _my _fault I suppose, for not, uh, having this talk with you sooner." She continued to speak rapidly, barely leaving herself a pause, beginning to gesture to herself as she spoke and looked down at her hands- anywhere but into his eyes.

"Euphie _should_ have known better really though because I've already had this kind of talk with her, I just... kind of didn't know whether I should have, with you, since I figured Euphie would be responsible enough on her own and I figured that-" Cornelia's hands suddenly stopped moving, clenching into tight fists, as she barked, "STUPID I WAS SO _STUPID _WHY DIDN'T I SEE IT BEFORE?" Her face suddenly shifted from an expression of nervous but benevolent patience to one of abject, soul-crushing grief, suddenly snapping her gaze back up to Lelouch and clearing her throat loudly. "AHEM!" Her face once agan trembled its way back into that patently false expression of calm, patient instruction, as she forced a nervous smile to wiggle its way onto her lips.

"Look... Boys are supposed to get this talk from their fathers, but, uh... obviously that's not going to happen..." she stated with a wavering gulp. "So it's going to have to be me. I hope you can live with that, I think you'd rather it be me than him anyway..."

Despite herself, Cornelia briefly imagined what it _would_ have been like if Charles had done his fatherly duty...

...

"You see, Lelouch, there are birds, and there are bees, and, well, the birds fuck the bees. Wear a condom."

"What's a condom, father?"

"Just wear one. I'm done here."

...

Shaking the image from her head, she'd meet Lelouch's expression, which was growing more confused by the minute.

"I don't understand, Cornelia. If I'm not in trouble then why are you so angry?"

Cornelia forced herself to try and smile, though it came out as more of an insane leer, and Lelouch winced at the sight. "Angry? No, no, I'm really not. I'm glad that this happened, really, it means you're growing to be a normal, healthy young man, just like Euphemia's growing to be a normal, healthy young lady. But, ah, as a young man, there are things you need to... um... know. About growing up. And about young ladies."

Gradually, a realization dawned on him. "... Cornelia, does this have anything to do with _sexual intercourse_?" Lelouch stammered, as a lightbulb flicked on over his head. "... You think _that's_ what Euphie and I were doing? ... It's _not!" _

Cornelia's heart stopped, and though a small trickle of relief flooded through her at Lelouch's fervent confirmation of Euphemia's story, the fact that he knew full well about the mechanics of the act as well as the fact that he seemed to know a bit about the facts of life already not only drew her suspicion but put the image that she was so desperately trying to avoid picturing in her head clear as day.

Trying desperately to rid herself of the image, Cornelia would momentarily pursue her curiosity. "What do you know about it, then? I mean, I'm sure you've read about it in the encyclopedia, but..."

"... I _saw_... one night, in the library, when I was... I must have been five or six, it was when Nunnally was still a baby, but... Father, and Mother were... I thought he was hurting her... god, those screams, but then later-"

"Oh, God, Lelouch, EWWWW, PLEASE!"

"she told me it actually felt _good_ and I-"

"PLEASE! LELOUCH!" Cornelia groaned, covering her eyes and wincing as if she'd been branded by a hot iron. Lelouch's elder sister seemed patently disgusted with the idea of Charles and Marianne ever having sex- of Marianne ever _allowing_ Charles to have sex with her- though beforehand, Lelouch hadn't though it possible for anyone to be more disgusted by the thought than he'd been. The very fact, when he'd learned it, that his parents had had sex in order to create him made him want to be buried alive.

She dry-heaved a couple of times, but eventually cleared her throat, yet again. "Ahemmmm! Look, I'm sure you're already aware of the... _mechanics_ of the act, but that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk to you about... _changes_ you're starting to go through, and, well, uh, changes Euphie already is going through, and more importantly, how you can protect yourself, and especially Euphie, from, uh... unintended consequences. Your, uh, your body... is going to change a lot in the next few years, so..." Cornelia coughed into her fist again before opening the shoebox and pulling out a booklet she'd retrieved from a parenting center on the subject that had to have been at least twenty years old.

Using vastly outdated terms for certain body parts and actions, and obviously reading very awkwardly through the more graphic sections, she gave a detailed account of what the book seemed to indicate was the typical male experience of puberty. She then gave a brief run-through of what women went through, as well- "which is why you've probably begun to notice that Euphie acts a bit strangely every month, which I'll admit happens to me from time to time as well..." - and finally came to the last and most obviously awkward part.

Contraception.

"Now, you see, far more treacherous than menstruation is what happens beforehand, ovulation, which is when her body releases a fertile ovum, and it's then that a young lady's body begins to betray her in the very worst possible way..." Cornelia added, glancing up to Lelouch, with a dour, ominous expression, "because it floods her brain with hormones that demand that she try and become a mother as soon as possible, and whenever Euphie tries to get you into situations like... the _situation_ you were in when I found the two of you today... that's not _her_ behaving like that, that's her _ovaries_ making her do it. Her _body_ wants her to become a mother at as young an age as possible, because that's the way humans used to reproduce, back before civilized times...

"But OBVIOUSLY we do NOT live in those times anymore, and neither of you are anywhere NEAR ready to be parents yet, and I'm CERTAINLY not ready to be an aunt." Cornelia groaned as she unloaded her little speech, before approaching the bed and opening up another packet inside of the shoebox, as well as a banana she'd brought along... for demonstration.

"Now, look, Lelouch, I'm absolutely not condoning you USING this, with Euphie or with ANYONE. On the contrary, if I hear about you doing anything like this with Euphie, with a condom or not, you're fucking dead meat." It was the first time in quite a long time Lelouch had heard Cornelia swear, much less in a casual manner.

"But you're a teenager now," Cornelia added, reaching over to pat his shoulder. "And teenagers tend to do a lot of stupid things."

Her fingernails squeezed his shoulder painfully.

"REALLY stupid things."

They squeezed even more tightly, breaking the skin a bit as her eyes narrowed and her voice suddenly became an icy hiss.

"_SUICIDALLY _STUPID THINGS. ... _do you catch my drift...?_"

"Y-... Yes, ma'am..." Lelouch swallowed firmly, his voice quavering in terror.

"Seriously, Lelouch, I do love you dearly but if you impregnate my sister I _will _rip it off and throw it in the blender."

"I s-swear, Cornelia, I wouldn't even think of it...!"

Cornelia's demonic expression suddenly shifted back to one that was surprisingly cheerful and chipper. "Good. I'm glad we understand each other. See you at dinner, Lelouch, and don't be afraid to ask me any questions about all that stuff!"

Five minutes later, when Lelouch could work up the courage to move a muscle, he realized that the banana- still encased in a prophylactic- was still lying on his lap.

...

"Look, Lelouch, Nunnally and I made dessert!" Euphemia smiled sweetly as she guided her half-sister's wheelchair to the table, where Nunnally quickly placed a silver dish.

"Oh, thanks, Nunnally, but really, I'm stuffed, I couldn't eat another bite..." Lelouch protested, having barely nibbled at his dinner- he couldn't imagine eating with _those _images fresh in his head...

"Oh, but you've _gotta_ try this one, big brother...!" Nunnally added, removing the covering.

"Banana splits!"

...

"Ah, Lelouch must be really sick today! First fainting in the bathtub and then throwing up all over the table! I hope you take good care of him, Cornelia!" Nunnally stated with concern as Cornelia tucked her in.

"Oh, I already did...." Cornelia murmured softly to herself.

"What was that, big sister...?"

"I said, I sure will, Nunnally. Goodnight!"

* * *

Well, I didn't get to start that arc I've been waiting to start after all, but this chapter was just too much fun to write. Next time, for sure, though!


	11. Flash of Lightning

"Stop, stop, Nellie, you're killing me! Buwahahahahaha!" The Countess Enneagram's cheeks were flushed a bright red as she let out a guttural chuckle, silencing Cornelia for the moment, who merely looked on across the deck of the yacht in obvious annoyance. The _Flaming Chainsaw_ had been renamed- though not repainted- when the Emperor had given it to the Countess upon her twenty-first birthday at her personal request, following her inheritance of the family title and her stunning pair of victories won in the Knightmare campaigns at Morocco and Gibraltar.

The Knightmare ace was reportedly well on-track to becoming a Knight of the Round, and her performance- and value to the throne- had been rewarded accordingly. Sleek and elegant, the ivory-and-gold vessel seemed to melt perfectly into its own curves, a slender dagger piercing the foamy seas of the Gulf of California as Nonette enjoyed one of her rare vacations, lounging in an extremely skimpy thong- and nothing else- while Cornelia wore a considerably more conservative one-piece, the two of them resting on chaise loungers that Cornelia had, wisely, put at a considerable distance between them to ward off Nonette's inevitable pawing and crude comments.

Nonette's laughter eventually slowed, and for a moment, she just smiled, before eventually that faded, too, and her head tilted. "Oh, wait, you're serious…" Taking on a mocking look of concern, she'd add, glibly, "let me laugh even _harder._ AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"It's not _funny_, Nonette! He seriously said he intends to." Cornelia scowled, and for a moment wondered by how much of a majority of the time she wore this expression whenever she spent time with her 'best friend'.

"It's funny to me! Ooh! Oohoo! Oh, I need a drink!" Rising from her lounger and stretching in an extremely suggestive manner, she'd wipe a pair of tears from her cheeks, that bemused grin still spreading from ear to ear on her leering face. Reaching for a flute of champagne on the table next to her chair, she would glance over at Cornelia as she downed it with two gulps.

"You always need a drink. This is very bad, Nonette, do you realize what's going to happen to him if he-"

Cornelia was interrupted with a belch, and she squinted her eyes shut and put a hand to her forehead in disgust. "So then stop him!" Nonette finished, as if she'd meant to interrupt with that particular bodily function. "He's just a kid, after all! You're bigger! _And_ a soldier. Just tell him if he tries you'll pound him." The knight slammed a fist into her open palm with a grin that was simultaneously childish and sadistic- a schoolyard bully if there ever was one.

"Oh, that's a great way to earn his trust."

"What _trust_ do you have to earn from _him_? You're the only thing that's been standing between him and annihilation for the past four years, after his mother-"

"Yes, but he doesn't see it that way, he _can't_ see it that way. He was just starting to get back to his old self, too- even flirting with Euphemia again, it seemed-"

"My, my, Cornelia, are you playing _matchmaker_ with dear sweet little Euphie? After all the fuss you went to about _my_ corrupting her? How things have changed." Nonette paused, then yanked at the sides of her hair and put on a scowl, biting her lip theatrically like she did whenever she mocked her friend. "Rar, teach Euphemia anything like that again and I'll knock your block off!"

"There is a difference between innocent childhood romance and teaching a _princess_ how to open a _beer bottle_ with her _teeth_, especially one who is six years _underage_."

"It's a good party trick!"

"_Princesses_ do not do _party tricks,_ Nonette!" Cornelia bristled with simmering indignation, and Nonette's grin only got wider.

"Well, I know of one that does!"

_ulp!_ Cornelia swallowed hard.

"How did it go again? '_The eensy-weensy spider went up the-"_

"I thought I told you never to speak of that again!"

"-and then you-" Nonette gestured.

"That _never_ happened, all right?"

"-with _both_ carrots-"

"STOP!" Cornelia roared, and Nonette clutched at her sides, giggling fiercely.

"Oh, Nellie, you're just too easy. _Too easy._ It's not even _fun _anymore. I've got to find some fresh meat!"

"Yes, good luck with that, and good riddance." Cornelia rolled her eyes and flopped back into the lounger, sipping her watermelon juice on the rocks and crossing her ankles.

"Okay, okay, Nellie, don't get your panties in such a twist." Nonette smiled and crouched down next to Cornelia's chair. "So how exactly did this happen again? What were you two even talking about that caused him to mention it? Are you sure he wasn't just fucking with you? I mean, who knows, maybe he's trying to be more like me, I certainly wouldn't blame him, I _am _awesome after all." Nonette stuck her chin up haughtily, her grin widening.

"Well, you know the anniversary of… that day… was a week ago, yes?" Cornelia sighed and drew her legs up to her chest, assuming a protective posture as her expression, which had lightened if only momentarily when Nonette showed genuine interest in her concern, had once again fallen into distress when she recalled the circumstances of that day.

"Walk me through it."

…

Rainclouds over Pendragon were an unpredictable and scarce occurrence, though they came perhaps four or five times a year. For it to rain on today of all days seemed to be a fitting coincidence, though Cornelia wished it hadn't waited to start pouring until after Euphemia and Nunnally had gone with a few maids to go shopping. She wasn't entirely convinced Nunnally even remembered that today was the anniversary of her mother's death and the last day she ever saw or walked on her own- Euphemia had acted quickly to try and put it out of Nunnally's mind before the reminiscence had a chance to occur.

No doubt, however, that the two of them would be soaked by now, along with their nice summer wardrobe- at least Cornelia had managed to strong-arm Euphie into wearing something less form-fitting than she'd tried to leave with. Honestly, where the girl had even acquired such a skimpy top- no, Cornelia reminded herself, she knew of at least two people who could easily have provided such contraband. Nonette would have done it simply to piss Cornelia off, and Clovis would have done it simply because he seemed incapable of seeing the harm, always thrilled when Euphemia offered to be his personal model. Either way, the respectable collared blouse, albeit sleeveless, that she'd cajoled Euphie into wearing on top of that rag wouldn't be see-through when soaked…

Cornelia was one hell of a hypocrite. Openly lecturing her younger siblings about the dangers of hypothermia and the rudeness of allowing one's carefully-tailored garments to be carelessly soaked and possibly ruined as she had a week ago when Lelouch and Euphemia had fallen into the pond- after the considerably more awkward lecture she'd been forced to give Lelouch, that is- and here she was out on the balcony in the rain just the same, on that particular rail that she and Lady Marianne had often stood and talked and looked out over the gardens together. Her dress shirt had once been a light royal blue but was now an utterly soaked navy, her cravat more resembling a drenched sea cucumber, and her hair that had been so carefully curled and teased by one of Clovis's hairstylists had been utterly ruined, lying flat and slick against her head, the princess resembling a drowned rat. It was as if the rainstorm was attempting to make up for lost time, and in ages past, this torrent would have slaked the aching thirst of the parched soils of the Sonoran desert. In this age, however, it merely soaked the well-manicured lawns and gardens of the Britannian elite, and an imprudent princess who had decided to remain outdoors even when the first few harbingers of the deluge had pattered onto her shoulders.

Not, Cornelia reminded herself, that it was anything she hadn't suffered before. Her memories had just drifted back to Cambodia and the monsoon season she'd been stationed there once more when the corner of her eye caught a hand upon the rail next to hers, and she'd nearly jumped when she realized Lelouch had emerged from his seclusion- she hadn't seen him at all yet today, somewhat expecting him to stay in bed all day, and on today at least, she would let him...

"Lelouch... what-" Cornelia began, the instinct to lecture and condemn him for being out in the rain rising, only for sheer embarrassment at her flagrant hypocrisy to quickly stamp out the flickering flame of righteous indignation. "... good morning." she finally murmured, seeing the boy staring out at those same gardens as she.

"No, it's not." was Lelouch's simple reply, and Cornelia paused a moment, before nodding and moving in to pull him into a firm hug, laying her chin atop his head.

The sound of a few thunderclaps and the continual pounding of the torrent against the deck and over their bodies would fill the silence that remained for the next few moments. Each year, up until this day, Lelouch and Cornelia's initial conversation of the day had resembled an emotional game of chicken- where the pretense of nothing being amiss and today being just another day was kept up until one of them could no longer keep up the lie, and the first one to mention the significance of the day was the loser. Try as he might, however, Lelouch was now 0 for 3, and his penalty, as it had been in all three years past, was to meekly accept Cornelia's attempt at comforting him, though the comfort never came.

Today, Lelouch had dispensed with the game and simply surrendered straight away- it seemed the sight of Cornelia standing out there in the rain, and the fact that she hadn't even tried to scold him when he'd joined her, had made it impossible for either of them to ignore the reason for both- though it was true, Cornelia was still a bit confused, after three years of being forced to take the place of Lady Marianne, where her duties as a surrogate mother ended and her duties as a sister began.

She squeezed him tighter as he rested his cheek against her chest, and the tighter she squeezed, the more tempting it became for him to cry, especially with the rain rolling down his cheeks. Cornelia would never know, that was true, but... Cornelia wasn't important. He wouldn't betray himself, not like this. Clenching a fist so hard it nearly drew blood from his palm, Lelouch let his fist thump against Cornelia's back and murmured a dark execration.

"... what?" Cornelia opened an eye, and pushed him back from her, staring him full in the face as she placed a hand on his cheek. "You can't mean that, Lelouch."

"... who else can bear this burden, Cornelia? It has nearly crushed you." Lelouch returned her stare, and gently took her hand away. "... My fault. It was my fault, what happened to Mother, and what happened to Nunnally. I was- I _am_ the man of the house. It happened on _my_ watch. All else be damned, it was my fault. Had I acted like a man, instead of a cowardly boy, then-"

A stinging reddish whiteness and a clap of thunder that hadn't come from the sky rattled Lelouch's senses, and he reached his hand up to touch his reddened cheek, staring back into Cornelia's fiery gaze as the tears finally began to flow, to his eternal shame.

"Then you'd be dead. Your mother sacrificed her life to protect Nunnally, but she also sacrificed her life to protect _you_. And now you're saying you'd rather have thrown her sacrifice away to save your foolish pride, Lelouch."

"Cornelia... I..." He flung his fist aside and turned around. "I won't let you control me with that anymore."

"What are you saying, Lelouch? When have I ever-"

"You've been trying to keep me safe, sister, and I thank you for that. But I won't hide from my responsibility any longer. Not for your sake, and not for Mother's sake- not even for Nunnally's sake."

Cornelia swallowed, her heart feeling hollow all of a sudden, as she knew as well as Lelouch did that this represented a turning point. She was so proud of him... and so very scared for him at the same time.

"Lelouch, you're still a child. You can't just-"

"You said it yourself, Cornelia, I'm going to be a man soon enough. I'm not going to wait until I've got even more of my life holding me back from my responsibility- ... my destiny."

"And what destiny is that?"

"That man already told me. Something worthy of his attention. He expects me to prove my worth as a prince of Britannia, and I intend to prove that I am worthier than he. I intend to topple him from that throne and take his place!"

Lelouch turned to face Cornelia again, whose face had gone pale and whose eyes had gone wide.

"To take revenge for Mother- to make a better world for Nunnally- and to make sure that this Empire no longer stands for power for power's sake. A Britannia that will support the weak and defend the defenseless. A Britannia worthy of the goodness in Nunnally's heart."

Had Lelouch suggested this in any other situation, Cornelia knew she'd have taken it as a joke. The boy had begun to develop a wicked sense of humor, and a joke like this would have been right up his alley. 'Of course, of course, you're going to be Emperor. All hail Lelouch!' , would have been her reply.

But there was no denying the determination in his eyes, and the strength- no, Cornelia reminded herself, the utter _majesty_ of his expression. Part of her wanted to fall to one knee and swear loyalty to her brother right here and now. Oh, how very dangerous indeed, was this ambition for this boy... and as his sister, she reminded herself when her mind finally cleared, it fell to her to stop him.

Lelouch, it seemed, was seeing that part of her as well, as he took one step forward and offered his hand. "Not just Nunnally, but Euphemia as well. They are too good for this Britannia- for this world. Let's change it, together, for their sake, and for Mother's. Cornelia... sister... will you help me?"

A few heartbeats passed, and another thunderclap shuddered their bodies. Those few heartbeats felt like an eternity to both of them, but finally Cornelia had brushed past Lelouch, the tears beginning to flow, tears she couldn't allow him to see. "Don't be insane, Lelouch, it's never going to happen and you know it. Get inside and get out of those soaked clothes before you catch pneumonia."

It was as if Cornelia had sank a dagger into Lelouch's heart. He'd seen it in her eyes... he'd been so close, and yet... here she was, treating him like a child once more.

"... Cornelia, can we-"

"No. Not now and not ever. Not while I'm around and not while our agreement still stands, or have you forgotten it already? I won't let you go back on it so easily. You are not a man yet, Lelouch." Cornelia planted a hand on the pillar, gritting her teeth. "Now get inside before I make you get inside."

"... No." Lelouch crossed his arms and glared at his sister, who still could not bring herself to meet his gaze. Although he lacked the pieces to put her in checkmate, he knew she lacked the resolve to see this endgame through, and could foresee the inevitable result.

"... Fine. Stay out here and rot for all I care. If you want to make him proud of you this is a damn good start." Cornelia barked, right before the screen door slammed shut, putting him in one last painful check before conceding to a stalemate.

...

"So, then, cute little Lelouch is getting too big for his britches. That's adorable, Nellie. His balls finally dropped." Nonette replied, as subtle as a sledgehammer, prompting yet another scowl from her friend.

"And you fail to see how dangerous this is?"

"C'mon, Nellie, I may be a jerk but I'm not stupid. Of course it's suicide." Nonette reached over to ruffle Cornelia's hair, smirking cheerfully as she spoke, however morbid the subject. "He's talking treason. Overthrowing the Emperor, it hasn't been done in three hundred years, and the last guy what tried it got his intestines yanked out and burned in front of him. Wouldn't be surprised if Chuck's kinda itching to draw and quarter somebody, too, it suits his personality." Nonette scratched behind her neck, giving a somewhat subdued grin.

"Well, Britannia's entered a more civilized age, I would hope, and- ... wait... _Chuck_?" Cornelia paused, staring at Nonette, who shrugged.

"... _Emperor_ Chuck?" Nonette suggested.

Cornelia sighed, and rolled her eyes. "_Anyway_, I don't think I'm going to be able to stop him this time, Nonette, I'll be blatantly honest with you."

"Not as simple as hiding your keys, huh?" Nonette took another gulp of champagne before flopping back down into her lounger, crossing one long leg over her knee. "So he wants to prove he's a man? Well... actually, you might throttle me for suggesting this, but-"

"NO!" Cornelia barked immediately, sitting bolt upright and clenching both fists. "Don't you even go there-"

"_Relax_, Nellie, _relax_. Jeez, you've got such a dirty mind. What the hell did you think I was gonna suggest, take him to a whorehouse?"

Cornelia fidgeted, pressing the tips of her index fingers together. "Well, if you'll recall, you nearly did the same to me, in Thailand."

"Accident. Told you that already. Thought it was just an ordinary massage parlor."

"I still find it hard to believe you didn't know-"

"Moving on, Nellie," Nonette continued, talking right over Cornelia, "there's plenty of places that exist where boys go to try and prove they're men, but there's only one where you're guaranteed to be able to keep a constant eye on him."

Cornelia paused a moment, raising an eyebrow.

"You can't mean..."

"Well, if you're serious about keeping him safe." Nonette gulped down yet another flute of champagne. "Or you could turn him over to auntie Nonette. I'll take _real _good care of him. He could be my squire!"

"... You've got a sick mind, Nonette, but..."

"_Buuuuut?_" Nonette beamed, leaning in and grinning wickedly at Cornelia.

"... your other idea is worth a shot. I don't know how he'll react to the suggestion, but it's better than nothing. If I can somehow convince him that it'll help his goal, then..."

"Ooh, manipulative, aren't we, Nellie. So you _have_ learned from me after all, I'm so proud." Nonette snickered, while Cornelia blushed and glanced off the edge of the boat's deck, looking over the foamy crests that dappled the gulf...

...

"You may be right, Cornelia." Lelouch glowered as he glanced out the window to the moonlit fog that hung over the gardens of Aries, the two siblings sitting upon his bed in their pajamas. "The experience... will be valuable, and perhaps it is best if I earn some favor in the eyes of the Court before I make my move. ... Besides..." Lelouch added, and placed a hand on Cornelia's wrist. "I kind of want to see what it was like... for her."

"Think about it very carefully before you decide, Lelouch. It's hard, and it's not for everyone. But it helped me understand your mother a little better... and I would like it if you at least had the opportunity to try. ... I'm sorry about... the other day."

"No, I should be sorry, Cornelia..."

"Then we're both sorry and that's that." Cornelia pulled him into a gentle hug and began to smile slightly. "Just remember, no matter what you do, Euphie, Nunnally and I will always support you."

"So what do you think, then? Do you think I've got what it takes?" Lelouch raised his gaze up to his sister, and she'd tilt her head slightly.

"Well... you'll sure as hell have your work cut out for you. But if you can put even a tiny bit of the determination you showed me the other day, I'm sure you'll do just fine."

"Hm." Lelouch nodded, releasing himself from Cornelia's grasp. "Then I'll give it my best shot. If only because I want to see the look on that man's face when I graduate. Worthy of his attention... I'd say becoming a Knightmare pilot would be worthy, wouldn't you?"

* * *

( Many apologies for the unexpected delay in this chapter. Lots of life-rearranging events that are still ongoing. However, this chapter does open the saga I've been really itching to write since I started this fic, and has opened up quite a lot of inspiration for me. I've got a significant bit of the next chapter written already, so I hope to have it up as soon as possible. Please review and let me know what you think so far! )


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